Pop star Shakira has been warned she could be jailed for up to eight years if she is found guilty of an alleged £12 million tax fraud.
It emerged on Friday Spanish state prosecutors are demanding the stiff jail sentence if the shapely singer is convicted at trial.
Earlier this week the Colombian-born mum-of-two confirmed she had rejected an out-of-court deal believed to have involved her admitting to wrongdoing after she was charged with defrauding the Spanish treasury over a three-year period between 2012 and 2014.
She was charged with six separate counts of tax fraud totalling 14.5 million euros (£12.18 million) after a long-running investigation.
The 45-year-old, whose split with Barcelona star Gerard Pique has made headlines this year, has already paid the six-figure sum the Spanish taxman claims she defrauded along with interest believed to total three million euros (£2.52 million).
As well as an eight-year prison sentence, state prosecutors want Shakira to be hit with a fine of 23 million euros (£19.2 million) if she is convicted as charged.
The prosecution indictment has been submitted to an investigating court in Esplugues de Llobregat near Barcelona, which has been probing the singer.
Shakira – full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll – is accused of pretending to live abroad and using an existing complex offshore corporate structure to avoid meeting her tax obligations from 2012 to 2014 despite starting a relationship with former Man United defender Pique in 2011 and moving to Barcelona.
The artist, previously a tax resident in the Bahamas, only registered as a full tax resident in Spain in 2015.
Official residents in Spain pay Spanish taxes on their worldwide income.
People who spent more than 183 days in a given calendar year in Spain are considered Spanish residents for tax purposes.
Tax inspectors spent more than a year checking up on Shakira, even visiting her favourite hairdressers in Barcelona and checking her social media to try to show she spent most of the three years in dispute in Spain.
They concluded she had spent 242 days in Spain in 2012, 212 days in 2013 and 243 days in the country in 2014.
The report prosecutors submitted along with their criminal complaint alleged the time she spent out of Spain were “sporadic absences” linked to work commitments.
Shakira has denied any wrongdoing. Her PR firm Llorente y Cuenca said in a statement earlier this week: “She believes in her innocence and has opted to leave the issue in the hands of the law.”
A date for the trial has not yet been set and some analysts were predicting an eleventh-hour deal could still be struck before Shakira is asked to take the stand.
The singer and Gerard Pique announced they had split in May after 11 years together amid unconfirmed reports the footballer had cheated on the Colombian.
The former couple are said to have spent the last few weeks negotiating the future of their two children because Shakira wants to move to Miami with them.
