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Spain prosecutors seek to close Shakira’s second tax fraud case

Spanish prosecutors on Wednesday moved to dismiss a tax fraud case against Shakira just months after opening proceedings against the Colombian superstar over unpaid taxes of €6.6 million.

Spain prosecutors seek to close Shakira's second tax fraud case
Colombian singer Shakira arrives for the 2024 Met Gala. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP)

“The Barcelona provincial prosecutor’s office for economic crimes has requested that the proceedings against Shakira be closed … for the 2018 tax year,” the prosecutors office said in a statement, pointing to “insufficient evidence”.

Prosecutors opened the case in July, accusing the so-called Queen of Latin Pop of using a network of companies, some of them based in tax havens, to cheat the tax office out of €6.6 million in 2018, including interest and adjustments.

A month later, the singer paid €6.6 million to settle the debt, her agent told AFP.

In November, the singer reached a last-minute settlement with prosecutors to avoid trial in another tax fraud case involving income she earned between 2012 and 2014.

Prosecutors had accused her of defrauding the Spanish state of €14.5 million in charges she denied, saying she only moved to Spain full-time in 2015.

As part of the deal, she agreed to pay a fine of €7.3 million, equal to 50 percent of the amount of unpaid tax, along with a €432,000 fine, raising the total to nearly €7.8 million.

Now 47, the singer lives in Miami where she moved in April 2023 with her two sons after a bitter split from former Barcelona football star Gerard Piqué.

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CRIME

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel’s crystal meth

Spanish police said Thursday they had seized 1,800 kilos of crystal meth that Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country's "biggest-ever seizure" of the narcotic.

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel's crystal meth

Police arrested five people during the raid in the eastern Alicante province, one of them a Mexican running the cartel’s Spanish operation, a statement said.

“This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe,” Antonio Martinez Duarte, head of the police’s drug trafficking and organised crime unit, told reporters.

“Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,” he added.

READ ALSO: What are the penalties for drug possession in Spain?

He did not give his name but indicated the suspect was responsible for receiving the narcotics in Spain then distributing them within Europe.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most violent criminal groups whose influence remains strong despite the arrest of its founder Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and his son.

Both have been extradited to and jailed in the United States.

During the operation, police also detained three Spaniards and a Romanian, seizing five cars, documents, a weapon and cash.

But police believe it was a one-off trafficking operation and that “Mexican organisations are not permanently based” in Spain, Martinez Duarte said.

“These organisations send a trusted person who carries out the operation in line with their interests” and once that is over, he goes back home, he explained.

The seized narcotics had been due to be shipped to central Europe.

Although Spain is one of the main drug gateways to Europe, seizures of synthetic narcotics are uncommon as most traffickers usually deal in cannabis and cocaine.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain’s Europe’s cocaine gateway?

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