Inside Shakira’s tax battle with Spanish prosecutors – and her fight to avoid prison

The Colombian pop star was facing a trial that would have seen more than 100 witnesses – from an ex-boyfriend to a gynaecologist – called to give evidence. Instead, she has accepted six charges of failing to pay tax and will pay a £6m fine to avoid prison and protect her privacy, writes Graham Keeley in Barcelona

Shakira and her lawyer Pau Molins arrive at court, where the judge announced a deal with prosecutors had been agreed (Reuters)

Shakira has reached a deal with Spanish prosecutors to avoid a €14.5 (£12.7m) tax fraud trial which would have lifted the lid on her celebrity lifestyle.

The Colombian megastar answered “yes” when asked by the judge to acknowledge six counts of failing to pay taxes between 2012 to 2014 and agreed to a three-year suspended sentence which will mean she will avoid prison. She has to pay a €7m (£6m) fine. Before the eleventh-hour deal, prosecutors had asked for an eight-year jail term and a €24m fine if she was convicted of tax fraud.

The singer, who arrived at court in a pink suit and sunglasses, denied the charges and has insisted she was the latest victim of a witch hunt against high-profile athletes and famous people by tax authorities.

The last-minute deal ends a six-year battle between the singer and prosecutors. Lawyers for the singer and prosecutors spent the weekend locked in talks before announcing the agreement.

The singer, best known for hits “Hips Don’t Lie” and “Whenever, Wherever”, was expected to deny tax fraud charges in a month-long trial. Shakira has not only avoided a possible prison term, but the trial was expected to expose intimate details of her private life.

“Throughout my career, I have always strived to do what is right and set a positive example to others,” Shakira said in a statement. “Unfortunately, tax authorities pursued a case against me as they have against many professional athletes and other high-profile individuals, draining those people’s energy, time and tranquility for years at a time.”

She added: “While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour, I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal wellbeing in this fight.”

“It is logically a ruling of conformity that involves a recognition of the facts. But the decision has been motivated by personal issues,” Miriam Company, one of Shakira’s lawyers, told reporters outside the courthouse.

Argentina player Lionel Messi, Portugal striker Ronaldo and Brazilian-Spanish player Diego Costa have all been the subject of high-profile tax fraud cases in Spain. In 2016, Messi was sentenced to 21 months in prison and fined €2.09m for evading €4.1m in taxes. However, because the court’s sentence was less than two years and Messi does not have a criminal record, the footballer did not have to serve jail time. The sentence was reduced to a fine upon appeal. The player and his father Jorge made a voluntary €5m “corrective payment” before the trial.

A cast of 117 witnesses was due to appear during Shakira’s trial including an ex-boyfriend, staff from the fashion house Dolce Gabbana, a gynaecologist and hairdressers. Among the other expected witnesses were her brother, members of her band, her record company and representatives from her charitable foundation Pies Descalzos.

Choreographers, ballet dancers, stylists, lawyers, her chauffeur, dancers, and Zumba trainers were also among those who made up Shakira’s life during the period under examination.

Neighbours from her two homes in Barcelona, bar staff, hotel workers and even café workers are among the witnesses who were going to be called. Even workmen who did construction on her home in 2012 and staff from a studio which was rented by the singer could have figured in the trial.

Lawyer of Colombian singer Shakira, Miriam Company speaks to the media (Reuters)

The insight into Shakira’s life was provided by a tax inspector named only as Susana C who compiled an exhaustive report into the singer’s day-to-day activities.

Fresh from the success of the Latin Grammy awards last week, when she walked away with a clutch of awards, Shakira spent the weekend in Madrid talking to her lawyers to try to iron out a plea deal to avoid trial, according to reports in the Spanish media.

What was at stake in the long-running tax case was Shakira’s whereabouts during that period from 2012 to 2014. Tax authorities claimed the singer was living more than six months per year in Spain during the period and should have paid taxes to the Spanish exchequer.

Instead, prosecutors claim, the singer moved to Spain in 2011 when she met the former Spain and Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique. However, to hide her earnings, she used a complicated series of front companies based in tax havens “with the intention to avoid paying tax in Spain”, prosecutors alleged.

These shell companies were based in the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Malta, Panama and Luxembourg, it was alleged. At the same time, she maintained her official tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015.

In seeking to prove their case, tax investigators undertook an exhaustive investigation of the singer, taking her private life apart. Receipts from hairdressers, appointments at the gym and even social media posts were collected to prove the prosecutor’s case.

“It was one of the most detailed investigations we have ever done. This is what is needed in a high-profile case like this,” an investigator from the Spanish tax authorities told The Independent.

The most conspicuous absence in this case was Shakira’s ex-partner Pique, with whom she had two sons and lived in Barcelona for 11 years before their bitter break up last year.

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, who was dubbed the “queen of Latin pop”, initially denied any wrongdoing, and previously turned down a plea deal with prosecutors.

Shakira’s lawyers countered the prosecutor’s claims by saying that until 2014 she was leading a “nomadic life” and earned most of her money from international tours. They said that she only moved permanently to Barcelona just before the birth of her son Sasha in 2015.

She faces a separate €6.6m tax fraud case relating to undeclared earnings in 2018 from her El Dorado World Tour, that case is still pending.

It is not the first time the singer’s finances have been under the public eye.

In 2021, Shakira was among scores of famous names revealed in the Pandora Papers leak, which revealed the way the global elite allegedly avoided paying tax. In Shakira’s case, the revelations related to three companies registered in the British Virgin Islands. Her legal representatives said at the time that these companies were for operative and commercial reasons not to gain any tax advantage.

During the Latin Grammy Awards, the top awards for Latin music, which were held in Seville last Thursday, Shakira performed twice and picked up three awards, including for song of the year and best pop song for her collaboration with Argentine DJ Bizarrap on “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol 53”.

The song takes a swipe at her former partner Pique after the couple split up after more than a decade together and has been played 1.5 billion times on Spotify and YouTube. However, not content with the reference to her ex-husband, the song also includes a reference to be being left with a “debt to the tax office”.

Shakira refused to take out the reference to the battle with the tax authorities despite her looming trial. “People on my team tried to convince me to change the lyrics but I am not a UN diplomat. I am an artist and, above all, a woman,” she said in a recent interview with ¡Hola! – the parent magazine of Hello! in the UK – but she made no specific mention of the legal case.