When Shakira took the stage at the Seville Conference Center to collect the Latin Grammy for best pop song, along with Bizarrap, she had already made a decision that, in reality, she had been meditating on for the last five years of her life. “I want to dedicate it to my children, because I have promised them that I am going to be happy,” said the Colombian singer, who verbalized her desire to close the wounds caused by the breakup with former Barça defender Gerard Piqué (riddled in the lyrics of the award-winning song ). But the message contained another meaning: Shakira was going to shelve, also for her children, the legal case for defrauding the Treasury of 14.5 million.
The gala was held on Thursday night the 16th. The next day, in the afternoon, Shakira met in Barcelona with her lawyers, from the Molins & Silva firm, with very clear ideas. She told them that she wanted to be happy for the sake of Milan and Sasha and that she no longer wanted, as she had maintained until that moment, to submit to the trial. And she instructed them to close an agreement with the accusations (Prosecutor’s Office, State Attorney’s Office and Generalitat) that had been on the table, in fact, for a year and a half, when a first negotiation between the parties ended in failure. Between the initial draft agreement proposed in the summer of 2022 and the written agreement sealed last Monday at the Barcelona Court there are hardly any differences. Shakira did not accept it then, among other things, because Piqué insisted that she fight, and because she preferred to keep her options open until the end.
Until the day after the Grammys, the lawyers were preparing the trial as if it were going to take place. They were confident of a victory, like the one they obtained in the case of former motorcyclist Sito Pons, also accused of not paying taxes while being a tax resident in Spain. At the Palace of Justice, 12 sessions and the appearance of 117 witnesses who maintained professional and personal relationships with the singer between 2012 and 2014 were scheduled, when according to the accusation she already lived in Barcelona. Criminal lawyer Míriam Company spent more than a week in Miami, where the artist resides with her children, preparing a statement that was going to be produced in the first session, on Monday. Afterwards, according to what the president of the court had told her, Shakira could return to the United States and follow the trial, if she wished, electronically.
The best possible agreement
The possibility of a last-minute deal, a common practice in tax crimes, had never been lost sight of. But Shakira’s landing in Spain, a few days before the Grammys, made that option gain weight. The singer conveyed her doubts to her lawyers, which were more linked to the media exposure of the trial and the wear and tear on her career than to the fear of losing. After warning them that he could change his mind at any time, he asked them to negotiate the pact discreetly and, at the same time, to thoroughly prepare the battle for the calendar before the Treasury: the key to the case was always whether more than the half of the year, a condition to be considered a tax resident.
Shakira meditated for a long time and, according to close sources, consulted personalities from the world of music, who advised her to reach an agreement and close a matter that, according to her later expressed, had “stolen” her time and peace of mind since, in 2018, the Prosecutor’s Office filed the complaint. She agreed to the pact reluctantly and at the last minute, which was not a problem because all parties already knew what the clauses of a possible agreement were. What was offered in the summer of 2022 – and a year later, when Pau Molins assumed leadership of the defense and re-entered negotiations – was still in force at the doors of the trial. The Prosecutor’s Office was not going to move from there. If she accepted it, fine; but also.
By accepting the accusation’s story, Shakira has become a tax fraud (the sentence is final), but she has evaded trial and has had her prison sentence and fine reduced. The Prosecutor’s Office initially requested a total of eight years and two months in prison and a fine of 23.5 million. With the agreement sealed, she modified her letter by applying a mitigating measure of reparation for the damage, given that she had paid more than 17 million: the defrauded fee and her interest. The agreement leaves the penalty at three years in prison in total (in reality, six months for each of the six crimes, the minimum) and a fine of 50% of the defrauded fee, or 7.2 million. It is, according to judicial sources, all that the Prosecutor’s Office can offer when an agreement is reached in this type of crimes. “Getting something better would have been practically impossible. He has not received special treatment, but neither are better deals offered,” Molins reasons.
Criminal record
In addition to the money, the other key point of the agreement was what happened to the prison sentence. The possibility of Shakira ending up behind bars was extremely remote, almost impossible. But it had to be seen if the execution of that sentence would be suspended or replaced by a fine; It is a very technical question, but with real-life consequences. Generally, when prison sentences are less than two years and there is no criminal record, magistrates and courts suspend their execution on the condition that no other crimes are committed within a certain time. In the case of Shakira, however, the sentence has not been suspended, but has been replaced by the payment of a fine of 432,000 euros.
The substitution is no longer contemplated by the current wording of the Penal Code, but it was in force when the events occurred. Molins believes that this circumstance is more advantageous for his client and is the great achievement of the agreement because, in the end, “the penalty is a fine.” The singer has a green card which allows you to reside in the United States. To renew the permit, the authorities require a criminal record certificate. Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll will appear in the prison registry of the Ministry of Justice and will not be able to cancel her record, according to the law, for three years. This document contains a series of data, including the crimes committed (six crimes against public finances) and the fact that they have been replaced by a fine. For the North American authorities, the lawyers indicate, this substitution “will facilitate the best possible treatment,” since it is more acceptable than a custodial sentence.
Two pending cases
Molins is satisfied that the pact satisfies his client, but he partly regrets not having been able to “fight with his swords raised in the trial.” He believes that he could have demonstrated, as he did with Sito Pons, that Shakira could not be considered a tax resident those years, despite the evidence gathered by the Tax Agency. The lawyer fought unsuccessfully to exclude the 2012 financial year from the conformity ruling, which would have been good for a second matter that the singer still has pending in Spain despite her desire to leave those problems behind and forget her time in Barcelona. .
The Tax Agency fined him for having evaded paying taxes in Spain also in 2011, a year in which he obtained extraordinary profits from his world tour. the sun rises. Unlike what happened in subsequent years, this exercise did not end in criminal proceedings but only in administrative proceedings. Shakira had to pay the 60 million euros fine to be able to appeal in a case that she describes as “nonsense.” Although the ruling on the 14.5 million fraud involves recognizing that she lived in Spain since 2012, it will not have any effect on that appeal since we are already waiting for the National Court to issue a ruling.
Shakira also faces a second criminal case for alleged tax fraud in Spain that has just begun. The Prosecutor’s Office has filed a complaint against her for evading the payment of six million euros in taxes in 2018 through a “network of companies” that allowed her to “simulate” the transfer of her musical rights to shell companies. Shakira thus avoided including a part of the million-dollar income obtained thanks to the musical tour The Golden, which that year led him to give 53 concerts in Europe, the United States and Latin America. Molins predicts that this process has a “good prognosis.” The Prosecutor’s Office, for the moment, has asked Interpol to be notified of the complaint and the summons. It is foreseeable that, this time, she will declare herself under investigation from Miami and will not have to travel to a Barcelona that, personally and tax-related, only gives her bad news.
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