Two people arrested as friends face charges of abandonment

The investigation into the death of former One Direction member Liam Payne, who fell from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October while under the influence of multiple drugs, has led to the arrest of a hotel worker in the country’s capital this week, according to local media reports.

A hotel employee and a suspected local drug dealer were arrested, according to a local news outlet La NacionAs part of the investigation, the authorities gained access to the house of an Argentine businessman. The accused employee is a maintenance worker at the hotel. The two men arrested are accused of supplying him with the narcotics found in his body during an autopsy. None of the three men facing charges have been named by authorities in Buenos Aires.

On October 16, Payne fell from the third floor of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. According to an autopsy conducted immediately after his death, he died of trauma and internal and external bleeding. According to the Mobile Criminalistics Unit of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Police, substances “that were narcotics and alcoholic beverages, as well as several destroyed objects and furniture” were discovered in Payne’s hotel room. Before Payne fell from the balcony, he had used cocaine, La Nacion Reports.

The businessman involved in the investigation reportedly falsely posed as the singer’s manager. La Nacion reports that he failed to inform Payne’s family about the singer’s drug addiction and that the man did not contact authorities after his death, later only speaking to investigators through an attorney. The man is reportedly accused of abandoning a person, which does not require detention by authorities.

Police reportedly searched nine locations as part of their investigation into Payne’s death. Eight of the locations were linked to the three people charged in the case, while the ninth location is the rented room of one of two women who were allegedly in his room with Payne hours before his death. The two women, named by investigators by their initials “L” and “R,” were reportedly called into the room by Payne through an escort app called Moans. However, La Nacion reported that the two wanted $5,000 from Payne, who refused to pay that amount. The two women left amid an argument with the artist that spilled into the hotel lobby and resulted in the hotel manager calling Payne’s businessman friend to send him money and end the argument.

“L” initially spoke to the authorities after Payne’s death, but has since disappeared from her rented room La Nacionwhich reports that a neighbor told the outlet that the room in question was unoccupied, even though the barking of a dog could be heard behind the door. She is currently wanted by the authorities.

According to the outlet, police seized nine cellphones, three computers, two hard drives and a jar of marijuana as part of their investigation.

An email sent from The Hollywood Reporter On Thursday, he contacted Argentina’s No. 14 Crime and Penitentiary Prosecutor’s Office requesting information about the arrests and investigation and was not immediately returned.

When news of the arrests broke, Payne’s body was reportedly taken to the UK on a British Airways flight for his funeral.