Joran Van der Sloot, a man who has been blamed by police for many crimes on the Caribbean island of Aruba, has been now been accused of extorting money from the family of a girl who was murdered.

Van der Sloot supposedly admitted in an interview with Dutch newspaper, The Telegraph, that he tried to extort more than $250,000 from the family of Natalee Holloway, whom he was seeing, to "get back at them."

While his lawyer has suggested the comments were misconstrued, the paper quoted Van de Sloot as saying: "I wanted to get back at Natalee’s family. Her parents have been making my life tough for five years. When they offered to pay for the girl’s location, I thought: ‘Why not?’"

He now faces extortion charges in the United States for allegedly trying to extort more than $250,000 from Holloway’s family in return for the location of her body.

While he has denied responsibility for Ms Holloway’s disappearance, Van de Sloot has also been accused of killing another woman, Stephany Flores, in a hotel room.

He was arrested twice in Aruba in connection with the Holloway case but was never charged.

Ms Holloway, from Alabama, disappeared in Aruba after spending a night on the town with Van der Sloot.