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A unidentified friend of Liam Payne and two hotel employees reportedly had their homes raided as part of the ongoing investigation into the singer’s death.
The employees worked at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina where Liam Payne died after falling from a third-floor balcony on October 16th.
According to TMZ, Argentinian police raided the homes of the three persons of interest Tuesday night, as well as the hotel lockers of the employees. They are also reviewing security footage from the hotel.
It had previously been reported that investigators suspect the hotel employees may have smuggled drugs to Liam Payne in his suite. Toxicology tests reportedly revealed Payne had at least six different drugs in his system when he died.
“There were two guys at the hotel that were giving Liam drugs,” a source told the Daily Mail. “They sent taxis out to collect packages for him. One of the guys was working in the cleaning department. After Liam died, they noticed that one taxi was sent to the cleaner’s home address.”
The unidentified friend of Liam Payne was reportedly identified after investigators viewed text messages from Payne’s cell phone in an effort to try and determine who sold drugs to the former One Direction singer prior to his death. Police stated the unidentified friend was not at his home at the time of the raid.
This is at least the second set of raids that have been conducted by Argentinian police during the investigation.
Shortly after Payne’s death, a police source reported that authorities had raided the CasaSur Palermo Hotel to “obtain elements of interest for the investigation,” seizing electronic and paper records, computers, phones and other devices, as well as videos taken from the hotel’s underground area, the lobby and the courtyard where Liam Payne’s body was discovered.
Last week, Argentinian broadcast journalist Paula Varela claimed security camera footage exists that shows Liam Payne fell to his death after passing out on his third floor balcony.
“There is footage that is not being released to the media with the balcony scene where you see that Liam faints and tragically, because of where he is, falls from that balcony,” Varela claimed on the Buenos Aires TV show Socios del Espectaculo.
“If he had been beside his bed, he would have fallen on his bed. It’s not that he jumped deliberately. This footage is in the official case file.”