Popular Colombian luxury handbag designer, Nancy Gonzalez, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after she pleaded guilty to smuggling purses made of the skins of protected reptiles.
Gonzalez, 71, was sentenced in a Miami federal court for going against the international treaty of not illegally importing bags made from caimans and pythons.
According to a statement from the US Department of Justice, Colombia and the US are signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which aims at protecting caimans, the lookalike to alligators and pythons.
Although the trade in caimans and pythons is not banned, they are strictly regulated under CITES rules but Gonzalez never got the required import permits needed by regulators.
According to reports, between February 2016 to April 2019, officials stated that Gonzalez hired friends, family and employees to transport the bags on passenger airlines to the US which she subsequently sent to her showroom in New York.
According to Associated Press (AP), Gonzalez designer bags were worn by celebrities like Victoria Beckham and Salma Hayek and were included in the 2008 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Also, her bags have been carried by Sex and the City actors and Britney Spears,
“This investigation uncovered a multi-year scheme that involved paid couriers smuggling undeclared handbags made of CITES-protected reptile skins into the US to be sold for thousands of dollars,” said Edward Grace of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
“The Service will continue to seek justice for protected species exploited for profit, and we will hold accountable those who seek to circumvent international controls meant to regulate their sustainable trade,” he added.
The police authorities nabbed Gonzalez in Cali, Colombia in 2022 and she was extradited to the US to face criminal charges.
“From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to the United States of America,” Gonzalez told the court, according to the AP.
“I never intended to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude. Under pressure, I made poor decisions.”
