Two people arrested as part of investigation into Liam Payne’s death

Two people were arrested and Liam Payne’s friend’s house was searched in connection with the singer’s death. On Wednesday evening, multiple local reports confirmed that Buenos Aires police had arrested a hotel worker and a suspected drug dealer and gained entry to the home of an Argentine businessman who spent time with Payne while in the country.

The two arrested men are accused of supplying him with the narcotics that were found in his body during an autopsy after he fell from the third floor of the CasaSur Palermo hotel. One of the accused workers is a maintenance worker and the other person is said to be the drug dealer in this case.

La Nation reports that Payne’s businessman friend, who posed as Payne’s manager when he wasn’t, has been charged with abandonment of a person, which carries a possible sentence of three to six years behind bars. His accusation does not require incarceration.

Multiple media outlets also report that the boyfriend failed to tell Payne’s family that he had problems with drugs. Accordingly La NationOn the day of his death, investigators tried to call the friend, but he never showed up. The next day he spoke to police through a lawyer.

Authorities searched nine locations, eight of them in connection with the three people against whom the criminal charges were filed. The ninth location of the raid was the room of one of the women who was said to have been with Payne hours before his death. According to the outlet, police seized nine cellphones, three computers, two hard drives and a jar of marijuana.

The new investigation updates come as Payne’s body was transported on a British Airways flight to the UK for burial.

According to an autopsy report last month, the former One Direction member died from multiple traumas, internal and external bleeding and a skull injury as a result of his fall. Initial investigations also revealed that there were narcotics in his hotel room.

The CasaSur Palermo Hotel was raided for the first time late last month, with authorities seizing videos and documents for the investigation. “We are heartbroken,” Payne’s family said in a statement last month. “Liam will live in our hearts forever and we will remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul. We support each other as a family as best we can and ask for privacy and space during this terrible time.”