Two hotel workers and a “friend” of Liam Payne are now the focus of Argentine authorities’ probe into the pop star’s death last month.
On Tuesday night, authorities conducted raids on the homes of two CasaSur Palermo Hotel employees, who they believe had contact with the One Direction alum, 31, before his Oct. 16 death, Buenos Aires law enforcement sources told TMZ. The staffers’ lockers at the hotel were also searched.
Payne fell to his death from one of the hotel’s third-story balconies that day, just moments after a hotel receptionist called emergency services, requesting assistance for a guest who was allegedly “trashing” the room while “high on drugs.” The receptionist at the time said he feared the guest was at risk, due to the balcony in the room.
The “friend,” who authorities identified from texts found on Payne’s phone, was not found during the most recent raids.
Officials last month said they were focused on determining who sold Payne the drugs found in his system, which according to a toxicology report included cocaine, benzodiazepine, crack and a drug cocktail with the street name of “pink cocaine.”
A preliminary autopsy said Payne’s fall caused multiple traumatic injuries resulting in internal and external bleeding and that he “may have fallen in a state of semi or total unconsciousness.” Authorities, on the other hand, said he “jumped from the balcony.”
In the days after Payne’s death, a source within Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office told People that an indictment could be in order, as evidence suggested “a hotel employee sourced the drugs for Payne.”
The hotel was raided a week after Payne’s death, with sources close to the investigation telling Us Weekly that CasaSur “must provide” additional security camera footage.
Local authorities subsequently told TMZ they were focusing on both the drugs found in Payne’s system as well as small objects in his hotel room, in particular a soap box believed to have been used to disguise the substances.
Late last month, an Argentinian reporter said CCTV footage showed Payne fainting “and tragically because of where he is, falls from that balcony.
“It’s not that he jumped deliberately,” Paula Varela told Canal 13’s “Socios del Espectáculo” at the time. “This footage is in the official case files.”
