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. 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 β a baseball cap drawn tightly over his face β 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 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 β 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. The post reads: 'Fly high, Chief. Thank you for having enlightened me and for crossing you into my reality.
