Joran van der Sloot, convicted in the killing of Peruvian woman Stephany Flores Ramirez and linked to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, fears he could be murdered inside a notorious Peruvian prison after allegedly accumulating gambling debts with inmates who have threatened to “piñata-ize” him, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.
Attorney Maximo Altez said his former client wrote to him last month pleading for help securing a transfer from Challapalca prison. “Please go to the judge and tell him they want to kill me,” van der Sloot allegedly wrote.
The Dutch prisoner has launched a legal effort to leave the remote facility for a less restrictive prison, claiming he has faced death threats, extortion and psychological torture from fellow inmates. He also says the danger has become so serious that his wife has stopped visiting him.
Van der Sloot is serving concurrent sentences in the United States and Peru for attempting to extort Holloway’s mother, murdering Flores Ramirez and smuggling drugs into prison. Although he confessed to killing Natalee as part of a US federal plea deal, he was never prosecuted for her death.
Altez said van der Sloot angered inmates who extended him “credit” to support his compulsive gambling after he claimed he was poised to make “big money” from a film about his life.
“He thinks he’s a rock star because all the newspapers and news outlets talk about him,” Altez, 70, told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
“People know Joran is famous. But the problem is, when you are famous, you have to be rich.
“Joran is poor, and now he cannot pay his debts because he has no money.
Joran van der Sloot reportedly fears he could be killed inside a notorious Peruvian prison after allegedly accumulating gambling debts with dangerous inmates
Holloway, an Alabama teenager, disappeared during a graduation trip to Aruba in May 2005 after leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two friends
“He owes money to too many people, and now they want to kill him,” Altez said.
According to Altez, van der Sloot was stabbed about a month ago and is considered so vulnerable that prison authorities have placed him in an isolation unit, known as “the hole,” for up to 23 hours a day.
He was transferred to Challapalca in August 2014 after allegedly threatening to kill the warden at his previous prison in Lima, the Daily Mail reported at the time.
Challapalca is a maximum-security facility that houses some of Peru’s most dangerous criminals and is notorious for its severe conditions.
The prison sits in a mountainous region of southern Peru near the Bolivian border. It is so isolated that the nearest city, Puno, is about a six-hour drive away along dirt roads.
“It is the worst prison in the world,” Altez said. “The food is bad, there is no medicine, and it is about 5,000 meters [roughly 16,400 feet] above sea level, so you can’t even breathe.”
Van der Sloot has written a series of handwritten complaints and court filings in Spanish seeking a transfer, alleging that inmates are actively plotting to kill him.
In letters sent to prison officials in September and reviewed by the Daily Mail, he claimed inmates had repeatedly tried to enter his isolation unit and had threatened to kill, poison and rape him.
The 39-year-old Dutchman, pictured during his extradition in 2023, has pleaded to be moved from Challapalca, which his former lawyer called the “worst prison in the world”
The remote maximum-security prison stands roughly 16,400 feet above sea level, with the altitude and limited medical access adding to its harsh conditions
“That is torturing me psychologically and affecting my mental health,” van der Sloot wrote.
In one account, he said a group of inmates threatened to “piñata-ize” him and told him it “would be best if I killed myself.”
In another letter, van der Sloot claimed inmates left a bag containing broken glass and a rock on the patio beside his isolation unit, along with a demand for money.
He also alleged that prisoners were offering as much as 50,000 Peruvian soles, or about $14,000, to anyone who could smuggle a gun into the prison and kill inmates housed in isolation.
“It is worth mentioning that if I am killed, it will become news nationally and internationally,” he wrote.
Van der Sloot said the threats had become so severe that his wife, Leidy Figueroa, stopped visiting after allegedly being threatened during a visit in August.
It “scared her so much that we agreed she would never return to this penitentiary,” he wrote.
Figueroa’s latest visit came three years after reports that she and van der Sloot appeared to be separating.
Altez previously said van der Sloot intended to divorce his wife for a “younger, prettier” girlfriend, Eva Pacohuanaco, who was accused of smuggling drugs into his former prison.
Holloway’s remains have never been recovered, and she was declared legally dead in 2012. Van der Sloot has said he pushed her body into the Caribbean after beating her to death
Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, spent nearly two decades seeking answers about her daughter’s disappearance
Van der Sloot married Figueroa, 36, at Piedras Gordas prison in Lima in July 2014, when she was heavily pregnant with their daughter, Dusha, who is now 12.
In an expanded habeas corpus petition, van der Sloot alleged that five inmates had been killed at Challapalca this year, including two who were allegedly murdered on the same day in September.
He said his extended isolation was worsening his diagnosed anxiety and bipolar disorder, for which he claims to take several prescription medications.
Van der Sloot accused prison officials of delaying his transfer request for months despite his repeated warnings that his life was at risk.
As of October 31, he said his habeas corpus petition, filed August 11 with the Superior Court of Justice in Puno, had not been resolved.
“As this concerns my life, physical integrity and mental health, I request that the competent authority issue a ruling at the earliest possible time,” van der Sloot wrote.
The status of his legal challenge remains unclear. Court officials declined to provide the Daily Mail with details of the case or court documents.
“If they don’t move Joran, sooner or later he will be dead,” Altez warned.
Van der Sloot confessed in 2023 to killing Holloway on an Aruba beach, nearly two decades after her disappearance shocked the nation
Van der Sloot married Leidy Figueroa, 36, at Piedras Gordas prison in Lima in July 2014 while she was heavily pregnant with their daughter, who is now 12
“In two or three months, the people are going to kill him.”
Yet in an extraordinary admission, Altez said he feared the “serial killer” could strike again if released.
“If Joran goes free, he will be a danger to the entire population because he has mental problems.
“He has to be in prison, because if Joran were on the streets, he would kill more people.”
Altez said he worked with many criminals during his time as a police officer before becoming an attorney, but few were as dangerous as van der Sloot.
“One of the most dangerous people I have ever met is Joran van der Sloot,” he said. “Nobody trusts Joran, and Joran trusts nobody. Even me, I don’t trust Joran.
“Joran is a bad person. But we go back a long way because I have known him for 16 years. I know he did bad things, but right now he is being tortured.
“He is suffering a lot. I don’t like that, and that is why I help Joran.”
The teenager’s disappearance is revisited in the new Netflix documentary Taken: Natalee Holloway
The documentary follows Beth Holloway’s relentless search for the truth about her daughter’s disappearance and death
Last December, van der Sloot was reportedly found close to death in his cell after an apparent suicide attempt.
In April 2024, he reportedly suffered cuts and bruises when inmates attacked him in a communal area of the prison.
Even so, many people will find it difficult to feel sympathy for him.
In 2023, van der Sloot finally admitted killing Holloway after she disappeared during a high-school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.
Her disappearance is explored in the Netflix documentary Taken: Natalee Holloway, which chronicles her mother Beth’s 20-year campaign to learn what happened to her daughter.
The Alabama teenager disappeared after leaving a nightclub in May 2005 with van der Sloot and two of his friends.
For years, van der Sloot, who lived in Aruba with his late father, Paulus, a judge in training, and his art-teacher mother, Anita, denied any involvement in Holloway’s disappearance.
He was arrested twice but released without being charged.
The convicted killer says his wife stopped visiting Challapalca after inmates allegedly threatened her during an August visit
Five years after Holloway disappeared, van der Sloot was convicted of murdering Peruvian woman Stephany Flores Ramirez, pictured
His confession was included in a US plea deal involving wire fraud and extortion charges. The charges arose from his attempt to obtain $250,000 from Beth in exchange for information about her daughter’s remains. He received a 20-year sentence.
Van der Sloot admitted beating Holloway to death and disposing of her body in the Caribbean. Her remains have never been found, and she was declared legally dead in 2012.
Asked about the documentary, Altez said: “I feel sorry for Natalee’s mother because she is a good person. Everything she says is true. Joran did something horrible.”
In 2010, van der Sloot killed Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old student from a wealthy family, in Lima—five years to the day after Holloway disappeared.
He was sentenced to 28 years for Ramirez’s murder, which he is serving in Peru alongside his US sentence.
In 2023, he received an additional 18-year sentence for smuggling cocaine into prison.
Van der Sloot is expected to be released in 2045, when he will be 57 or 58, because Peru limits prison terms to 35 years.
Beth Holloway and her attorney, John Q. Kelly, did not respond to the Daily Mail’s requests for interviews. Holloway’s father, David, declined to comment.
The Daily Mail contacted Figueroa, Pacohuanaco and Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute for comment but did not receive responses.