Shakira will have to return to Barcelona to face one of the most complicated blows of her life. If in 2022 she assumed that her love affair with Gerard Piqué was coming to an unforgivable end, in 2023 her problems are just as serious or more serious: accused of six tax crimes, she faces sentences bordering on eight years in prison and fines that do not fall below 24 million euros. The scheduled date for the beginning of the oral hearing is November 20.
The Provincial Court of Barcelona has reserved a fork for 12 or 15 sessions between the end of November and the middle of December so as not to postpone the hearing in 2024. At the moment, according to the information that has reached La Vanguardia, it is a save the date, that is, a reservation in order to set a definitive date. Shakira's stay in Barcelona will not change in any way: already settled with her children in Miami, the artist will appear only on the day of the declaration. This circumstance is neither a privilege nor an exception, but a perfectly consolidated practice.
The fiscal ministry and the State Attorney's Office (which represents the Tax Agency) demand a large fine, plus a custodial sentence - almost eight years and a little more than five, respectively - for six related tax crimes to the non-payment of property taxes and personal income tax during the years 2012, 2013 and 2014. At the end of 2018, between the tax inspection and the opening of the criminal investigation, the singer made available to the court the 14.5 million claimed plus interest, in total, about 17 million. With this, he did not assume any degree of guilt, since he has always affirmed that during these exercises he was not a Spanish resident, but rather it was a gesture of good will and an attenuating measure to repair the damage if the data went wrong in the future.
In case he was acquitted, this amount will be returned to him. Otherwise, it is true that the risk of prison is there, but the Colombian decided to assume it a long time ago and trust in justice. The alternative would be to reach an agreement, pay a significant sum and cancel any possibility of prison. However, this extreme would mean accepting that he committed a crime, and the artist prefers to endure the so-called "television penalty" and play it by pursuing acquittal before becoming guilty forever and admitting criminal wrongdoing which he assures that he has not committed.
Shakira is represented by the prestigious Barcelona penalty judge Pau Molins, with a media background with cases such as the defense of Infanta Cristina, Sandro Rosell, Santi Vila and Félix Millet, among other major processes. And this case promises to be one of the most delicate, due to the international reach of the defendant, and one of the most confusing: the parties have proposed up to 200 names to testify. The Court has requested them to motu proprio reduce their respective lists of witnesses, and depending on what the final names are, each party will be able to review the list of the others, strike out matches and, where appropriate, change some witnesses for others A fit that predicts a lot of work in the coming days.
