A famous handbag designer whose products were worn by Britney Spears and in Sex And The City has been jailed for smuggling crocodile bags into the US for fashion shows.
Nancy Gonzalez, 71, admitted recruiting couriers to transport up to four products each on commercial flights from her native Colombia to the U.S. for new York Fashion Week, among other prominent events.
Gonzalez, who was arrested in 2022 in Cali and later extradited to the US, was sentenced to 18 months in federal court in Miami on Monday for violating U.S. wildlife laws.
The bags, made from the skins of captive-bred alligators and pythons, were worth up to $2 million (£1.6 million), prosecutors said, but the designer’s lawyers said each skin only cost about $140 (£ 113).
At times, it was unable to obtain proper import licenses from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, something supported by a widely ratified international treaty governing trade in threatened and endangered species, the court heard.
Choking back tears, Gonzalez told the court before sentencing that he deeply regretted not fully complying with U.S. laws.
She said: “From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to the United States of America. I never intended to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude. Under pressure, I made poor decisions.”
Salma Hayek, Britney Spears It is Victoria Beckham are among the celebrities who have purchased Gonzalez’s carefully crafted bags.
His work was also included in a 2008 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In court, his lawyers played a 2019 video of top buyers from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praising the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity.
But prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said retailers “must be sorry they were subjected to this and if they knew the case was brought to court they would cringe”.
“They have their own brand to protect,” he added.
Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behavior to that of drug traffickers, said his activities were “all driven by money.”
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Her lawyers asked for leniency for the woman, who they said created “the first high-quality, luxury fashion company in a third-world country” that later competed with industry giants like Dior, Prada and Gucci.
They also argued that only 1% of the goods it imported into the US did not have proper documents and were samples for New York Fashion Week and other events.
Prosecutors were seeking a harsher sentence of 30 to 37 months. But the judge said he was taking into account the nearly 14 months she spent in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition.
She was ordered to begin her sentence on June 6.
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