(CNN) -- A teen being held in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway met the Alabama student at her hotel's casino a day before she vanished, according to police.<br /><br />Juron Van Der Sloot -- the teenage son of an Aruban judge -- was among three people taken into custody early Thursday. Two brothers, Satish and Depak Kalpoe, were also arrested.<br /><br />Authorities have said the three were the last ones seen with Holloway, 18, when she left Carlos 'N Charlie's, a popular nightclub in Oranjestad, about 1:30 a.m. on May 30.<br /><br />Also Thursday, authorities said the investigation has spread beyond Aruba -- with police forces in nearby South America contacted. They did not say where those forces were or why they were contacted.<br /><br />Police said Van Der Sloot met Holloway on May 29 at the casino in the Holiday Inn where she was staying with classmates who had traveled to Aruba to celebrate their high school graduation.<br /><br />Holly Brown, a friend who accompanied Holloway to Aruba and was at Carlos 'N Charlie's the night she disappeared, said she found Van Der Sloot to be "very different."<br /><br />"We noticed he was in the casino all by himself," she told CNN in Alabama. "He lied about his age, and when we went on the (Carlos 'N Charlie's) Web site, we found pictures of him there one week before at the same place, wearing the same clothes."<br /><br />Police interviewed Van Der Sloot and the two brothers shortly after the disappearance was reported, but they waited until Thursday to take them into custody. At their homes Thursday, police confiscated various items, including a computer and a car believed to have been the one Holloway left the nightclub in.<br /><br />Chief prosecutor Karin Janssen would not speculate on what might have happened to Holloway.<br /><br />"All options and all scenarios are open," Janssen said.<br /><br />In total, five people have now been arrested as part of the investigation. The two other men -- Abraham Jones, 28, and Mickey John, 30, both of them security guards at a hotel near where Holloway was staying -- were arrested on Sunday, and their defense attorneys maintain the two are innocent.<br /><br />So far, no charges have been filed against anyone in the case.<br /><br />In the Dutch judicial system, which Aruba follows as a Dutch protectorate, people are arrested on suspicion of a crime, but not formally charged until later.<br /><br />Authorities have denied that wealth and race have played a role in the investigation. The three arrested Thursday are from comparatively well-to-do families, while the two men arrested Sunday live on the poorer, more industrial eastern side of Aruba.<br /><br />"The suspicion of a suspect has nothing to do with the color of his skin, but the grounds of suspicion," Janssen said.<br /><br />Aruba Prime Minister Nelson Oduber vowed, "On this island, nobody stands above the law."<br /><br />The disappearance of Holloway, from the Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Mountain Brook, has galvanized the resort island and resulted in massive searches. The honor student, who won a scholarship to attend the University of Alabama, was visiting the island with about 100 Mountain Brook High School classmates and parent chaperones.<br /><br />Authorities have said she left the Oranjestad nightclub with the three males about 1:30 a.m. on May 30. In previous questioning, they told police they visited a beach with her before taking her back to her hotel about 2 a.m.<br /><br />According to police statements, at least one of the three told authorities that as Holloway was getting out of their car at her hotel, she stumbled and one of the three helped her up. As she was walking to the hotel, she stumbled a second time, the statement said, and a "dark-colored" man wearing a black T-shirt and carrying a radio helped her.<br /><br />But a Holiday Inn employee who has reviewed surveillance tapes the morning of Holloway's disappearance said the tapes do not show that incident, nor do they show any sign of Holloway.
