BARCELONA: A court in Spain said Thursday it has shelved an investigation into another alleged tax fraud by Colombian pop star Shakira, putting an end to her legal woes in the country where she once lived.
Prosecutors had started the trial in July last year, accusing her of using a network of companies, some of them based in tax havens, to cheat the tax office out of €6.6 million (7.09 million dollars) in 2018, including interest and adjustments. A month later, the so-called Queen of Latin Pop paid €6.6 million to settle the debt.
But on Wednesday prosecutors recommended that the investigation be dropped due to “insufficient evidence” and the court probing the case agreed, AFP reported.
While the court said the popular singer had committed “irregularities” in her 2018 tax return, it added that irregularities are not enough to constitute a criminal offence against the tax authorities.
It added that the singer did not have the intent to defraud the tax authorities.
In a separate case, Shakira in November struck a last-minute deal with prosecutors on the opening day of her case over a separate tax fraud charge involving income she earned between 2012 and 2014.
In that case, prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of over 8 years for the singer. They accused her of defrauding the tax officials of €14.5 million in a case that centred on how much time she was living in Spain.
Shakira Denies Charges
Shakira denied the allegations, saying she only moved to Spain full-time in 2015.
By the time the case came to trial, Shakira had already paid €17.45 million to settle her outstanding tax debt, prosecutors said at the time.
On the day it started, that trial — which had been due to run for 3 weeks and hear from some 120 witnesses — was quickly concluded after she agreed to pay a fine of about 7.8 million euros.
At the time she explained she had settled with the best interest of her kids at heart because she needed to move past the emotional toll and stress of the last several years and focus on her career.
