Shakira faces fresh court charges over alleged tax fraud

A Spanish judge in Barcelona, Esplugues de Llobregat, has ordered a second investigation against Shakira for alleged tax fraud.

VOA1 reported that the investigation comes after Judge Marco Jesús Juberías argued that Shakira living in Spain for over 200 days from 2012–2014 makes her eligible and liable to pay $16.2 million in unpaid taxes in the foreign country.

Judge Juberías alleged that her financial advisor used a series of offshore bank accounts to hide her sources of income over the years.

Shakira’s legal team has maintained innocence and is “calm and confident in a favorable resolution to her tax affairs.”

The 46-year-old Colombian singer Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was said to have evaded payment of taxes in Spain between 2012 and 2014, when she was living in Spain with Gérard Piqué and their family.

Despite all these allegations, Shakira argued that she maintained her primary residence in the Bahamas during that period and was touring internationally.

The Judge, however, ruled that there was “evidence of criminality” sufficient for Shakira to be brought to trial on charges of tax fraud.