Spanish prosecutors have presented a lawsuit against the Colombian singer Shakira for six offences against the public treasury. She is accused of avoiding 14.5 million euros (£13 million; $16 million) in taxes by claiming she didn't live in Spain and hiding her income through a web of companies with headquarters in tax havens between 2012 and 2014.
In the lawsuit, presented today to a court in Esplugues de Llobregat near Barcelona, prosecutors call for the singer to be summonsed under investigation and calls for a bond equivalent to the 14.5 million plus a third (for a total of 19.4 million euros) or the seizures of assets up to this amount.
As well as the singer, her financial adviser in the US is named in the lawsuit. He was the director of various companies she owned. The filing says that currently "it's unknown what the participation might have been" by staff at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the "maintenance or restructuring" of the web of companies she used.
According to prosecutors, the artist concocted a plan to not pay income or capital gains tax using this web of companies.
Specifically, they claim that the singer "channeled the movements of capital generated by her professional activity" through companies in the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Malta, Panama and Luxembourg. As well as income from money and performances, she was also a judge on the US version of The Voice and gives her name to a perfume brand.
They also say she reached an agreement with financial authorities in Luxembourg for "specific and privileged" tax conditions when she was already resident in Spain and obliged to pay her taxes in that country.
In a statement previously sent to the media, the singer, married to Catalan footballer Gerard Piqué, said that she has always complied with her tax obligations and "owes no amount to the Spanish tax office".