Isabel Pantoja may be facing a familiar and unwelcome prospect: a return to prison. According to reports, the singer could “relive her worst nightmare” ten years after being released from the women’s prison in Alcalá de Guadaíra, where she served 14 months for money laundering related to the Malaya case.
The potential for re-incarceration stems from an outstanding debt of 1.010.000 euros owed to the Spanish Tax Agency, responsible for managing taxes and levies in Spain.
The collateral for that debt was Cantora, the estate owned by her late husband, Francisco Rivera ‘Paquirri’, which is set to be auctioned off in the coming days. The bank foreclosed on the property after five years of unpaid monthly mortgage payments of 12,000 euros, resulting in a total debt of 2.2 million euros to the Spanish bank KutxaBank.
With the loss of the estate, the artist is now unable to meet the payment demanded by the Tax Agency. Once the deadline to settle the debt administratively passed, the agency reportedly decided to initiate criminal proceedings to recover the funds.
Isabel Pantoja could face one to five years in prison
“The deadline has already passed, since she no longer owns the estate; it belongs to the bank. The Tax Agency currently has nowhere to claim that money, and the extensions they had granted have expired,” explained the director of Lecturas, Luis Pliego, on the program El tiempo justo.
Criminal proceedings would significantly complicate Isabel Pantoja’s situation, as she has a prior record and the debt exceeds one million euros – an amount that in Spain constitutes tax fraud, punishable by between one and five years in prison. According to the journalist, the situation would only change if she is able to develop the payment.
Adding to the uncertainty, a potential financial solution for the artist – a series about her life – is now in question. The publication reports that the video platform she’s been negotiating with has given her until April to decide whether to share her full story, including her time in prison, her relationship with Julián Muñoz, and her connections to figures like Encarna Sánchez and María del Monte. These topics are reportedly necessary conditions for the project to move forward.
