Located on the waterfront in Puerto Madero, near Buenos Aires’s glittering financial district, Cabana Las Lilas is a famed celebrity haunt that has counted tennis legend Roger Federer and French president Emmanuel Macron among its many delighted guests.
The signature dish is a 1.3kg tomahawk steak of Argentinian beef, flambéed in cognac at the diner’s table and served with truffled potatoes – all for the princely sum of £108.
Given the establishment’s tendency to lure the rich and famous, staff working there on the night of October 2 were unsurprised when a slightly disheveled-looking pop star – a baseball cap drawn tightly over his face – came to dine.
But while his beautiful blonde girlfriend Kate Cassidy and their two so-far-unnamed companions tucked into a selection of the restaurant’s famous grilled meats, he sat before his empty plate, agitated, distracted and apparently under the influence of drugs.
The Mail can now reveal that it was in this restaurant that night that former One Direction singer Liam Payne met a 24-year-old waiter by the name of Braian Nahuel Paiz, kicking off an unlikely friendship that Argentinian prosecutors believe helped lead directly to the singer’s tragic and untimely death just two weeks later.
It is a story of secret Instagram accounts, cocktails of potentially deadly drugs, at least three separate encounters that took place between the two men – and even claims that Payne offered Paiz his tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt as ‘mementoes’ of their friendship.
So just who is Braian Paiz, who was charged last week by the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office of Argentina, along with two other suspects, for his alleged involvement in the multi-millionaire’s death?
Exactly one month ago, on October 16, Liam, who was just 31, fell 46 ft from the third-floor balcony of Room 10 in the CasaSur hotel in the upmarket Palermo district where he had been staying for the previous three days as part of a two-week trip to the South American capital.
An Instagram post by 24-year-old Braian Nahuel Paiz, who stands beside the late Liam Payne before he fell to his death in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last month. The post reads: ‘Fly high, Chief. Thank you for having enlightened me and for crossing you into my reality. I will always remember you’
Among other things he was there to see his former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan in a solo show at the 15,000-capacity Movistar Arena on October 2.
The Mail has spent the past week building a picture of Paiz, whose social media pages are replete with images of the fresh-faced would-be actor posing shirtless.
Speaking to the Mail on condition of anonymity, one member of the waiting staff at Cabana Las Lilas told us: ‘Braian was a good friend of mine. He was a cool guy, and he stayed at my home many times. But he had his problems with cocaine. And now he’s turned his phone off. No one working here has been able to contact him.’
Another colleague at the restaurant revealed that Paiz used to drink at the Hard Rock Cafe after his shifts at Las Lilas ended. They added: ‘He was extroverted, smiley – and rarely alone.’
Although Paiz has apparently gone into hiding since Payne’s death, refusing to speak to journalists, last weekend he gave a single brief interview to the Argentinian TV station Telefe Noticias. According to Paiz’s account, Liam had asked the waiter for his contact details in the restaurant because he wanted to buy drugs. That evening, Paiz claimed, the pair exchanged messages over Instagram, with Payne using a private account operated under a discreet pseudonym.
One can only imagine how Paiz, who hails from a deprived suburb of Buenos Aires and who harboured his own dreams of fame, must have felt upon receiving the attentions of a global superstar.
In his interview, Paiz revealed: ‘He sent me messages because he wanted to do drugs. I think he was going to a concert or something. We swapped details and saw each other later that night.’
After visiting the restaurant, Payne apparently went to Niall Horan’s gig, where he appeared in high spirits. After the show, he shared a selfie on social media alongside Horan with the caption: ‘Reunited.’
Later that night, Payne apparently summoned Paiz to meet him at the Park Hyatt Palermo – a different hotel from the CasaSur, where he was to die just two weeks later. Paiz told Argentinian TV that Payne even came down to fetch him from the lobby after the young man got lost looking for the star’s room.
He added that they listened to some of Payne’s unreleased music while sharing ‘some whisky shots’.
The paraphernalia left in Liam’s room when police entered the hotel suite. Paiz admitted the pair ‘took drugs together’
On the night of their second rendezvous, on October 13 – 11 days after they first met – Paiz admitted: ‘We took drugs together.’
By that stage, Liam’s girlfriend Cassidy had unexpectedly left the country – more of which later.
Paiz and Payne’s second meeting, of course, was at the fateful CasaSur hotel, where the singer would perish just three days later.
In their extended drug session, Paiz apparently smoked marijuana, while Payne consumed considerable quantities of cocaine. Footage leaked after the star’s death shows a large variety of drugs paraphernalia in his suite, including crumpled pieces of burnt tin-foil, a lighter and traces of white powder.
It should be stressed that Paiz has categorically denied supplying narcotics to the pop star, claiming: ‘I never took drugs to him . . . I have messages where he’s offering me money because he was apparently used to offering money for everything – but I never accepted anything.’ Nevertheless, the Argentinian attorney general insists that Paiz is responsible for distributing ‘two clearly verified supplies [of cocaine] during two different times’ – seemingly his two visits to Payne’s hotels.
Another twist came when Paiz told Argentinian TV that the two shared an ‘intimate’ moment on the night of October 13. ‘We spent the night together, we consumed drugs because the truth is that something intimate happened,’ he claimed.
‘He wasn’t aggressive at all, he behaved really well with me, he was really sweet. He asked me if I was OK. I’ve got all the messages where we arranged that second meeting. I haven’t erased anything.’
Paiz added: ‘When I left, he wanted to give me some clothes so that I had a memory of being with him. But I left them behind because I didn’t want to take them. It was some grey jogging bottoms and a T-shirt.’
Paiz later clarified on Instagram: ‘I never said I had sex with anyone.’ He then deleted that message.
After their late-night rendezvous on October 13, which had run into the early hours, Paiz returned home only to text Payne again: ‘I told Liam a best friend of mine wanted to meet him because he was a fan.’
The singer agreed and took a car to Paiz’s house that morning – October 14, two days before he died. ‘He appeared outside the place where I lived and managed to get halfway into the building and wanted us to go back to his hotel, but I told him I couldn’t because I had to go to work,’ Paiz revealed. Payne got back in his car and left. ‘That was the last time I saw him,’ the waiter said.
The CasaSur hotel, with the balcony of room ten – where Liam was staying – circled. Liam fell to his death on October 16
Paiz is believed to have grown up in Berazategui, a working-class district several miles south of the city centre. In Berazategui, he had a reputation for partying hard. Aldana, a childhood friend, told us: ‘Braian and I met at a rave eight years ago. He was an outgoing boy who liked partying and taking ecstasy.’
Paiz began his career as a hairstylist in the film business. However, he recently attempted to make it as a model and actor, supporting himself by waiting tables at Las Lilas.
The day after Liam’s death, Paiz posted two selfies taken with the singer alongside the caption: ‘Fly high, Chief. Thank you for having enlightened me and for crossing into my reality. I will always remember you. See you on other side’. He completed the tribute with a heart emoji.
The tender post was met with rage by Liam’s fans, who apparently blame him for supplying at least some of the drugs that helped lead to their idol’s death.
One user commented: ‘You are a murderer.’ Another said: ‘THIS IS SICK.’ Paiz later turned off comments to stem this tide of vitriol.
On Wednesday this week, Paiz posted a further picture of himself with Liam, alongside a rambling caption that insisted: ‘I will clear my name . . . I AM NOT THE DEALER.’
For now, Paiz, along with a 21-year-old hotel worker named Ezequiel David Pereyra, remains under investigation by the Argentinian authorities. He has handed his passport in to the police and is waiting to hear whether a prosecution will be brought before a judge.
The third man accused is millionaire energy tycoon and friend of Payne, Roger ‘Rogelio’ Nores, who denies ‘abandonment of a person followed by death’. The troubled star’s demise last month sent shockwaves around the world, raising stark questions about the welfare of young performers thrust into the spotlight at a tender age: Payne had first auditioned for the X Factor when he was just 14.
He had arrived in Buenos Aires with Cassidy on September 30. However, as the Mail has reported, Payne was visiting not only for pleasure, but had flown there from Miami, Florida, to await the renewal of his visa. His application had been delayed while he underwent medical checks and drug tests – a necessity under US immigration rules for anyone, like Payne, with a known history of abusing narcotics.
On October 14, two days before her boyfriend’s death, Cassidy flew home to Florida, writing on TikTok: ‘I was so ready to leave. Love South America, but I hate staying in one place for too long and we were supposed to be there for five days, turned into two weeks and I was just like, I need to go home.’
This week, however, a source told the New York Post that the real reason Cassidy had left was her exasperation over Payne’s lapse back into apparently chronic drug use.
According to the prosecutor’s report, Payne bought cocaine or other drugs perhaps four times in the three days leading up to his death, buying multiple grams at a time. Yesterday, new CCTV footage emerged showing Payne asking a hotel worker for ‘seven grams’ of cocaine shortly after 2pm on October 16, the day he died.
On the day of his death, Payne appeared to have lost control, with sources close to the singer claiming he had become ‘totally overwhelmed’ having recently been dropped by his label, Universal Music. Here he is pictured at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2018
On the day of his death, Payne appeared to have lost control, with sources close to the singer claiming he had become ‘totally overwhelmed’ having recently been dropped by his label, Universal Music, and even issued with a harassment lawsuit two days earlier by his ex-fiancee Maya Henry, a model seven years his junior.
At 11.30am that morning, two 25-year-old escorts had arrived at the CasaSur hotel. They did not leave until 4pm because of a row over payment. Police have since spoken to them. At 4.25pm, Liam was seen lounging in the hotel lobby with his laptop out. Suddenly, he exploded with rage, seemingly having received an email, and exclaiming, ‘F*** this s*** man!’ before smashing the computer to pieces.
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By 5pm, Esteban Grassi, the chief receptionist at the CasaSur Palermo, called the police complaining of ‘a guest who is high on drugs and who is trashing the room’. He added: ‘We need you to send someone urgently because, well, I don’t know whether his life may be in danger, the guest’s life. He is in a room with a balcony and well, we’re a little afraid.’
At 5.07pm, Payne fell from his balcony into the hotel’s interior courtyard. The first responders arrived just four minutes later. The subsequent forensics report detailed 25 separate injuries and found that he made seemingly no attempt to break his fall, leading to their conclusion that he was in ‘a state of semi or total unconsciousness’.
His body was originally taken to the police morgue but was later moved to the Chapel of Rest within the British Cemetery in the corner of the city’s vast Chacarita Cemetery.
Speaking to the Mail, one employee revealed for the first time that the body had been brought to the British Cemetery on November 1 and was kept in the chapel under 24/7 private security.
Liam Payne’s body may have been flown home to Britain, but many details about his final days remain here, more than 7,000 miles away, with his new Argentinian acquaintance. Braian Paiz dreamed of finding fame. In the most tragic circumstances, he seems to have achieved it.