Shakira: The Story Of How She Came To Trial And Her Last Message To Piqué

Last weekend, Milan, the nine-year-old son of Shakira and Gerard Pique, played a baseball game in Barcelona. His parents sat on opposite sides. They did not speak or look at each other. But Shakira seemed to send a message to her ex-husband. She had a sign in English attached to her jacket in which she said: ‘keep back’, whose translation is “stay away”. It also seemed like a message to the State administration and the Spanish justice system, which has not stopped persecuting her since 2021.

For this reason, he expressed a few days ago that “there had never been a persecution with such a lack of reasonableness and so fierce on the part of the treasury.” The baseball game was the day after the Prosecutor will formalize the accusation against her, for which he asks for eight years and two months in prison, as well as the payment of a fine of 23.7 million euros. It coincided with the fact that a judge from Catalonia issued an order to open an oral trial against the singer. The court order came after the negotiations between Shakira and the Prosecutor’s Office to reach an agreement had failed..

Hard hard

Shakira retains freedom.

to the singer he is accused of having defrauded the Spanish treasury for the sum of 14.5 million euros. Judge Ana Duro of first instance and instruction number 1 of Esplugues did not hesitate to call a trial. However, she did not take precautionary measures or provisionally send her to prison.

Shakira retains freedombut also provisionally. She will now be judged by the Barcelona Court, since the penalties provided for the crimes of which she is accused are greater than five years in prison.

According to the singer’s lawyers, the order to open an oral trial is “one more step” in any “usual” process of these characteristics and has added that the situation has not changed, since everything follows “its normal course”. For the prosecution, Shakira used a network of companies, located in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Malta, Panama and Luxembourgin order to hide their income and assets from the Spanish and Catalan Tax Agency.

(Keep reading: Shakira on trial in Spain: “Right now I don’t owe anything”).

For the Prosecutor’s Office, Shakira used a network of companies in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Malta, Panama and Luxembourg, to hide her income and assets from the Tax Agency

Advised by law firms and accountants, in 2008, 2012 and 2013 the singer reached agreements with the Luxembourg tax authorities, the so-called Tax Ruling, “to set specific and privileged tax conditions” in these years, according to the Public Ministry . Such agreements generated a “minimum taxation” of 2% of the gross income generated, with which he transferred the largest volume of his income to the singer’s companies.

These are crimes considered serious by Spanish criminal law. The fact of hiding income in tax havens is also socially punished. Spanish citizens are strict on the tax issue, but also on the sentimental issue. They do not see with good eyes the outcome of the love story between the singer and the soccer player Gerard Piqué.

The couple met in Madrid during the Rock in Rio festival. It was love at first sight. They agreed that they would meet at the 2010 South African soccer final, where Shakira would sing the famous waka waka. Since 2011 he has baptized the defender as the ‘sun’ on social media. When the relationship formally began, they went to live in Piqué’s bachelor apartment in Barcelona and later in a three-story mansion that they had built in Esplugues de Llobregat. They passed in 2012. Shortly after, in 2013, at the Teknon clinic in the Catalan capital, Shakira gave birth to her first child: Milan Piqué.

matter of numbers

Those years, precisely 2012, 2013 and 2014, according to the Tax Agency and the Public Ministry, Shakira would have stopped entering the public coffers 14.5 million euros. She explained that she began to live in Spain in 2015. The investigations of the Treasury and the Prosecutor’s Office indicate that she spent 242 days in Spain in 2012, 212 in 2013 and 243 in 2014.

The numbers exceed the ceiling that prevents taxes from being paid in Spain. The obligation to pay taxes is generated when you reside more than 183 days a year in Spanish territory. To prove it, the Tax Agency and the Prosecutor’s Office have resorted to paparazzi images, have inspected social networks and have gathered testimonies from hairdressers and beauty salons. An inspector from the state entity —equivalent to the Dian in Colombia— named Susana, reconstructed all of Shakira’s steps during the years in question. According to her, Shakira lived in Spain during those years and did not visit the Bahamas, some islands with which the singer has “no professional, family, personal or social ties.”

(Also read: Shakira: the harsh Spanish tax regime that does not forgive celebrities).

The Prosecutor’s Office requested eight years in prison for six fiscal crimes.

She used to come here many times in 2012, 2013 and 2014. She is a girl who always smiles and takes photos with clients

Shakira visited beauty centers and gyms, as evidenced by her credit card payments. “She used to come here many times in 2012, 2013 and 2014. She is a girl who always smiles and takes photos with customers,” said a waiter who met her to the investigation team of the La Sexta television channel.

Shakira, on the contrary, assured that she was residing in the Caribbean islands. And her lawyers, on the other hand, argue that the money was earned on international tours and for her participation in the program The Voicewhen he was not a tax resident in Spain.

The conclusion of her lawyers is that Shakira spent less than 183 days in those years in Spanish territory.. But the Prosecutor’s Office does not believe it, requested eight years in prison for six tax crimes. The six crimes generate prison for those eight years, at the rate of one year and four months for each offense committed. In Spain each crime is taken separately and since none of them reaches two years, the singer would not go to jail.

The lawyer Bárbara Royo, in statements to the newspaper The confidential He stated: “None of the crimes exceeds two years, therefore, the sentences of the six crimes would be suspended and he would not enter prison. In addition, he has no record and is not a regular criminal and has already paid 17 million euros. All of this makes it almost impossible for any judge to send her to prison, although the final decision will be in her hands.” Shakira previously paid 17 million to seek a mitigating factor against the crimes he is accused of.

(Also: And Pique? Shakira’s unexpected reaction to being questioned by trial in Spain).

If he were found not guilty, that money would be returned to him. And if she were convicted, she would have to pay the missing seven million of the total of 23.7. “I understand that this is the reason why Shakira’s lawyers are refusing to settle. There is no risk that she will go to prison and they can fight her innocence, ”Bárbara Royo concluded.

I understand that this is the reason why Shakira’s lawyers are refusing to settle. There is no risk of her going to prison and they can fight her innocence

The tax process against Shakira, the collapse of her marriage and her father’s illness are a nightmare, as she has stated. “Sometimes I feel like this is all a bad dream and that I’m going to wake up at some point. But no, it’s real, ”he said in a conversation with the magazine she.

In the same interview, he expressed that “regardless of how things ended or how Gerard and I feel as ex-partners, he is the father of my children. We have a job to do for these two amazing children and I have faith that we will find out what is best for their future, their own dreams in life and what is the fair solution for everyone.”

Like a paradox of life, Piqué has also had problems with the Treasury. He imposed a fine of 2.1 million euros a while ago for using a company to supposedly pay less taxes. After a long litigation, the Supreme Court agreed with him and annulled the penalty.

Music as refuge

As a defense mechanism, Shakira takes refuge in music. “The most therapeutic thing has been music,” she says. Your success I congratulate youor, which he sings with Rosalía’s partner, Rauw Alejandro, was one of the most listened to songs in Spain during the summer. For some, the song contains references to the reasons for Piqué’s separation with verses like “they warned me, but I didn’t listen, I realized that yours is false, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back”. And also from music came another reward. Hips Don’ Lie reached the figure of one billion reproductions on Spotify.

Her hit ‘Te congratulations’, which she sings with Rosalía’s partner, Rauw Alejandro.

Photo:

EFE, screenshot

(Can read: Piqué and Shakira: why did the singer not go to the appointment of lawyers?).

Nearly forty witnesses will testify before the court. Some in favor and others against. The trial is announced by the media and hard. The judgments in this matter have been severe in Spain. Messi has been on the bench and the investigations have delved into the pockets of other figures such as Radamel Falcao, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dani Alves, Xabi Alonso and Neymar. For a short time, the Tax Agency has been rummaging among youtubers, such as Rubius, who have changed their tax residence to Andorra, like other of his colleagues.

Taxes in Spain represent more than 20 percent of the total income of the State in the case of individuals. One fifth of the national budget. It does not escape them. Hence the persecution of alleged evaders. They surround them. The State does not want the treasury to suffer and does not forgive anyone, although many would like to tell it “stay away”.

The great fiscal debtors of Spain

On the red carpet of defaulters who do not pay taxes or evade them have been the television presenters Nuria Roca and Patricia Conde; former tennis player Arantxa Sánchez Vicario; soccer players Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi; the singer Miguel Bosé, and former FC Barcelona players Alex Song and Gabriel Milito. And the most unique of the group is the politician Rodrigo Rato, former vice president of the government and who, paradoxically, was Minister of Economy.