Liam Payne’s Alleged Drug Dealer Arrested in Argentina

One of the people accused of selling drugs to Liam Payne in Argentina before his death has been arrested. 

A former restaurant waiter named Braian Paiz was detained on Friday in relation to the case, per a new report from CBS News.

Paiz and one other person have been accused of supplying and doing drugs with Payne, who died after falling from a three-story balcony of a Buenos Aires hotel on October 16. Both of the alleged dealers were ordered to be put under pre-trial detention by a judicial officer on December 30.

The judge indicted a total of five defendants in a recent development to the case, charging two hotel managers and Payne’s alleged friend Roger Nores with wrongful death.

Paiz was also an employee of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires where the former One Direction singer died at 31 years-old. 

In an investigation conducted and published by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Payne was described as being intoxicated and unable to stand in the hotel lobby the day of his death. 

The report claims Payne was ushered by hotel staff to return to his room.

Paiz and his attorney Fernando Madeo Facente, have participated in interviews and offered public statements accusing international media of spreading lies in order to “find or pinpoint a culprit” at any cost.

A toxicology report confirmed Payne had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his body in the moments before he fell from the three-story hotel balcony. Following his death, the prosecutor’s office declared that his cause of death was “multiple trauma” and “internal and external hemorrhage.”