Shakira faces trial in Spain over alleged $14.7M tax fraud

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) – Colombian popstar Shakira has rejected a plea deal over an alleged €14.5 million ($14.7 million) worth of tax fraud in Spain, her public relations team said on Wednesday.

This puts the singer on track for a public trial, where she faces several charges for lying about her residency between 2012 and 2014.

Spanish prosecutors say that she lived in Spain although she claimed her official residence was in the Bahamas.

The singer's public relations team, however, claims she is innocent and insists that she already paid Spain’s treasury €17.2 million — the amount of money she owed, plus interest.

Shakira’s lawyers had been negotiating a settlement related to the charges with prosecutors, but are now opting to go to court and denouncing “prosecution.”

For the singer and her team, the case against her is “outrageous” given that she has always “behaved impeccably as a person and taxpayer, and has made herself available to solve any problem since the very beginning, even before there was a criminal proceeding.”

Now, Shakira “trusts her innocence and chooses to leave the issue in the hands of the law," her PR team said in the statement.

Shakira began a relationship with Barcelona football player Gerard Pique in 2011, and she had two children with him.

In 2019, the Spanish High Court also forced Pique to pay €2.1 million ($2.13 million) in taxes relating to income from image rights that were not declared in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Shakira and Pique announced they were splitting up this spring.