Three “yeses” and one “thank you”. With those brief words, Shakira accepted, this Monday, that she defrauded the Spanish Treasury of 14.5 million euros between 2012 and 2014. After weeks of negotiations, the Colombian singer has finally agreed with the accusations – Prosecutor’s Office, State Attorney’s Office and Generalitat — a three-year prison sentence (which he will not serve) and the payment of a fine of 7.3 million euros. In exchange for accepting the facts and paying the defrauded fee (she has already returned it), the agreement has substantially reduced the penalties: the Prosecutor’s Office initially requested eight years and two months in prison and a fine of 23.5 million. The agreement also contemplates the replacement of the prison sentence with the payment of another fine of 432,000 euros.
Magistrate José Manuel del Amo has issued the sentence out loud, which, as it is the result of a conformity, is now final. There is no possibility of appeal and, furthermore, there will be no more sessions of the trial and Shakira will be able to immediately return to Miami with her children. As planned, the criminal process was going to reveal the artist’s daily life in Barcelona during the years in which she had a romantic relationship with former Barça defender Gerard Piqué. The testimony of up to 117 witnesses who, at that time, had personal and professional dealings with her, was planned.
The need to avoid this public exposure and minimize the risk of prison has led her to accept the pact. “I have to choose my battles and the most important one now is to do everything so that my children live a full life and focus on what is really important: seeing them grow and spending time with them, without subjecting them to the anguish of seeing their mother in a criminal trial with the wear and tear that it entails,” he stated in a statement that his team sent just when Shakira accepted the sentence for tax fraud.
“Here we go,” Shakira told journalists upon entering the Barcelona Court, just around 10:00, the scheduled start time of the trial. Outside, on the street, the police had deployed an extensive security device for nothing: no fan has shown up on Lluís Companys’ walk to greet her or give her support, unlike some officials from the judicial building, who have shown their heads to see her arrive wearing sunglasses and dressed all in pink. The session lasted just 10 minutes, which the magistrate needed to report that a conformity agreement had been reached. Shakira sat on the bench and stood in front of the microphone just to say that she was aware of the agreement (she had already signed it), that she accepted it and to say thank you.
With the agreement, Shakira admits that, between 2012 and 2014, she was a tax resident in Spain and had to pay her taxes here. That has been, from the beginning of the investigation, the question under debate. The singer always defended that during that period she was a nomad who traveled around the world giving concerts and that her only visits to Barcelona, always sporadic, were to visit Piqué. The Tax Agency carried out an intense investigation by contacting service providers and professionals who assisted Shakira at that stage, and came to the conclusion that she spent more than half the year in Spain, a necessary condition for a citizen to be considered tax resident.
The investigation was based on the collection of witnesses who, starting this Monday, were going to parade through the courtroom to give an account of the singer’s life at that time. It will no longer be necessary with an agreement that specifies that the fine will be 50% of the defrauded amount and that the mitigating factor of reparation of the damage applies, since it had previously paid the 14.5 million euros plus interest. There were attempts at a pact before, but they failed. The first, in the summer of 2022. The terms were already very similar to those that were sealed this Monday: Shakira would accept a non-compliance prison sentence, she would accept the facts and pay a fine. If the negotiations did not bear fruit, it was partly because of the insistence of her entourage that she fight because she could win the case. The artist ended up slamming the door on the Prosecutor’s Office and accused her of being “intransigent.” A few days later, the public prosecutor’s office presented her indictment.
The conversations were frozen. But, as the trial date (set for November 20) approached, and especially after her breakup with Piqué, Shakira once again pursued the pact. She changed lawyers and hired criminal lawyer Pau Molins, who had won a very similar case, also regarding the tax resident status of a client: former motorcyclist Sito Pons. With the intention of making a clean slate, Molins returned to the negotiations with the Prosecutor’s Office this summer, but they did not materialize either. Everything indicated that there would be a trial until, a few weeks ago, negotiations were resumed.
Despite the pact, Shakira’s problems with justice in Spain have not ended. The Prosecutor’s Office filed a second complaint for alleged fraud in the Treasury in 2018. It accuses her of defrauding six million euros by using a “network of companies” to “simulate” the transfer of rights to instrumental companies. The ministry has requested that Interpol notify the artist, who resides in Miami, of the complaint and the summons so that she can declare that she is being investigated for two tax crimes.
A pact for children
The public statement sent by the artist’s team partially contradicts what was agreed in the courtroom. At the trial, Shakira takes the blame for her; In the face of public opinion, she rejects it once again. “I felt ready to face trial and defend my innocence. “My lawyers were convinced that we had a winning trial,” said the singer, who has asked that the penal system in Spain be reviewed in this type of process and has expressed her admiration for others investigated for similar crimes (expressly quoting the former player of the Real Madrid Xavi Alonso and former motorcyclist Sito Pons) “who have fought until the end.” In the end, she adds, she has come to the right for “personal, emotional and sentimental” reasons.
“I had two options: continue fighting until the end, mortgaging my peace of mind and that of my children, stop making songs, albums and tours, without being able to enjoy my career and the things I like, or make an agreement, close and leave this behind chapter of my life looking forward,” adds Shakira in that statement. “It is not a triumph to win if the price is having so many years of your life stolen (…) For me, today, winning is getting my time back.”
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