CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; OLD SCHOOL

Shakira faces 8 years in prison over tax evasion in Spain


Colombian superstar Shakira was indicted Friday on six counts of tax fraud in Spain, where she faces eight years in prison and a fine of nearly $24.5 million. 

File photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo

July 29 (UPI) -- Shakira's hips don't lie, but according to Spanish prosecutors, her tax returns do.

The Colombian superstar was indicted Friday on six counts of tax fraud in Spain, where she faces eight years in prison and a fine of nearly $24.5 million.

Prosecutors say Shakira didn't pay income taxes on some $14.8 million between 2012 and 2014, when she became a regular in Barcelona in the early days of her relationship with soccer star Gerard Piqué, according to El País.

Lawyers for the singer spent weeks in negotiations with tax authorities, hoping for a deal that would've quashed charges and excluded jail time. In May, judges threw out a defense appeal to have the case dismissed, El Mundo reported.

But this week Shakira rejected the state's settlement offer, maintaining her "absolute innocence" and blasting the prosecution for "trampling her rights," El País reported.

Shakira has maintained throughout the proceedings that she lived in the Bahamas and spent much of that time traveling for work, officially moving to Spain in 2015.

Yet her defense team is in for a tough fight to prove her residence was elsewhere in those two years.

The case against Shakira is further bolstered by a detailed investigation by El Pais, tracking the singer's day to day in those two years to show she spent more than half the year there. She was reportedly in Spain for 246 days in 2012, 210 days in 2013 and 243 days in 2014.

Her life in Barcelona included times in music studios, French tutoring, twice-weekly visits to a hair salon and zumba classes, El País reported.