A synthetic luxury drug cocktail known as pink cocaine that can cause a host of serious and lethal affects has been linked to the death of Liam Payne.

Named for its alluring pink hue created using food dye, the drug ironically doesn’t often contain cocaine.

Instead, it’s a potent mix of several drugs like the tranquilizer ketamine, the stimulant and psychedelic MDMA, and amphetamines like meth, though several recipes exist.

Medics say those that take it risk suffering extreme agitation, hallucinations, heart failure and psychosis.

Some have even linked it to a ‘bomb’ due to it combining the effects of stimulants and hallucinogens, and the huge strain it can place on the body.

Also known as ‘tuci’ or ‘tusi’ or ‘Pantera Rosa’ the drug originates from Colombia but has been found in the US, Spain and the UK for years, retailing for about between £77 and £83 per gram, according to reports. 

Several of pink cocaine’s ingredients can cause serious health problems by themselves. These include stroke, seizures and cardiac arrest.

While no standard recipe for pink cocaine exists MDMA/ecstasy, ketamine, and amphetamines are the most common ingredients as legal stimulants like caffeine as strawberry food dye that give the drugs its namesake shade.

However, LSD, hallucinogens like mescaline, and sometimes even powerful and addictive opioids like fentanyl have been found in some mixes in the past. 

The fact the recipe varies in both substance and the exact ratio, makes the drug unpredictable and users can suffer different affects, including fatal overdose, even if they have used the drug in the past even in similar amounts.

Dr Nelson from Santa Clara Valley Medical Center has previously said pink cocaine’s combination of substances could be extremely dangerous.

He told FOX KTVU: ‘When I read the mixtures in the ingredients of this drug, I’m expecting agitation, hallucinations, psychosis, sort of hyperstimulation.’.

Payne, just 31, plunged 45ft to his death from the third floor of CasaSur hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last Wednesday. 

Now, preliminary results from toxicology tests of the former One Direction star’s remains found traces of cocaine, benzodiazepine, crack cocaine and ‘pink cocaine’ in his system.

A report by news network ABC says: ‘A partial autopsy found that the former One Direction singer, who died at 31, had multiple substances in his system when he fell to his death from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Oct. 16th.

‘Those substances included ‘pink cocaine’ – a recreational drug that typically is a mix of several drugs including methamphetamine, ketamine, MDMA and others – as well as cocaine, benzodiazepine and crack.

‘An improvised aluminium pipe to ingest drugs was also found in his hotel room.’

Both reports have yet to be confirmed.

The drug has also played a role in the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s sex-trafficking investigation.

Diddy’s on-off girlfriend Yung Miami ‘transported pink cocaine for him,’ court documents have alleged.

Yung Miami, also known as Caresha Romeka Brownlee, was a member of the Diddy-backed group City Girls.

Combs and Yung Miami were first rumoured to be dating in 2021 and the pair confirmed they were dating in a June 2022 ‘Caresha Please’ episode. 

The lawsuit claims that in April 2023 Yung Miami brought the pink drug on a private jet from Miami to the Water Music Festival in Virginia because ‘Sean Combs wanted tuci but Brendan forgot it.’

Pink cocaine has been linked to a number of deaths. 

Wannabe singer Camila Sterling, 24, was found dead in a luxury Miami Beach hotel suite with the mix in her system in March last year. 

There have also been reports from Spain of teenagers dying due to pink cocaine. 

Spanish police have previously described it as a ‘bomb’ for its effect on the body.

‘It’s so powerful that it causes severe hypertension and can lead to heart failure,’ the Majorca Daily Bulletin reported. 

‘It’s a bomb because it is ecstasy and amphetamines in powder form. People don’t know what they are consuming.’

Pink cocaine is considered a luxury drug, and a single gram sells for around $100 (£77), while regular cocaine usually costs around $60 (£46).