A young woman found dead in Argentina may have been murdered by a drugs gang.

Laura Hill died in October 2007 while on a trip with a friend to South America.

The Argentinian authorities have always maintained that the 25-year-old took a cocaine overdose while partying in Buenos Aires.

But new evidence has come to light which suggests Laura could have been killed by drugs traffickers when she refused to smuggle Class A substances back to Britain for them.

Phone conversations that were secretly taped by police investigating South American and Asian gangs prove that Laura initially agreed to smuggle drugs in her laptop, but then changed her mind.

Her family suspect that her decision to back out of the plan led to her murder through a lethal dose of cocaine.

Her father Kevin Hill said: “I think she had to be silenced as it is clear she had second thoughts on doing anything.

“She clearly had too much information and the gang suspected she had told that to police.

There is a clear motive for her killing.

”Photographs from police files show Laura was found with cuts to her lips and bruises to her neck and arms.

Laura, who worked as a dental nurse, lived in Eastbourne with her family.

She decided to fly to Argentina with a friend in August 2007 on a whim.

Six weeks later she was found dead on the stairs of the apartment block she was staying in.

Her parents were originally told that she died of the overdose in a public park with a cigarette in her hand.

Mr Hill said: “Laura was not very well-travelled but she was a principled girl who we do not think would ever have become a drugs mule.

She wasn't a drug taker or a regular drinker.

”Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson, who has been involved in the case since the outset, has criticised the Foreign Office for failing to help the Hill family.

He said: “The Foreign Office performance has been nothing short of lamentable.

They failed to keep the family fully informed at the start of the whole case and have been quite begrudging in help since.

“It is very disappointing.

”A post-mortem will be completed by the East Sussex coroner when Laura's organs, which were missing when her body was flown back to Britain, arrive in the country.

Officers from Sussex Police’s Major Crime Branch are helping the coroner work out how she died.