Celebrity handbag designer sentenced to 18 months in prison for smuggling crocodile handbags

Celebrity handbag designer Nancy Gonzalez hides under an umbrella as she walks with her lawyer Andrea Lopez outside the federal courthouse on Monday in Miami. Photo / Joshua Goodman, AP

A leading fashion designer whose accessories were used by celebrities from Britney Spears to the cast of the “Sex and the City” TV series was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in Miami federal court on charges of smuggling crocodile handbags from her native Colombia.

Nancy Gonzalez was arrested in 2022 in Cali, Colombia, and later extradited to the US for running a sprawling multiyear conspiracy that involved recruiting couriers to transport her handbags on commercial flights to high-end showrooms and New York fashion events — all in violation of US wildlife laws.

“It’s all driven by the money,” said Assistant US Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behaviour to that of drug traffickers. “If you want to deter the conduct, you want the cocaine kingpin, not the person in the field.”

Lawyers for Gonzalez sought leniency for the celebrity designer, describing her journey as a divorced single mother of two children who designed belts on a home sewing machine in Cali for friends into a fashion icon who out-competed the likes of Dior, Prada and Gucci.

“She was determined to show her children and the world that women, including minority women like herself, can pursue their dreams successfully, and become financially independent,” they wrote in a memo prior to Monday’s hearing.

“Against all odds, this tiny but mighty woman was able to create the very first luxury, high-end fashion company from a third world country.”

Stars including Britney Spears used accessories by Nancy Gonzalez. Photo / Axelle, Bauer-Griffin, FilmMagic, File

The attorneys said the 71-year-old designer has already paid dearly for her crimes. The Colombian company she built, which once employed 300 mostly female employees, declared bankruptcy and stopped operating after her arrest.

They also argued that only 1 per cent of the merchandise she imported into the US lacked proper authorisation and were samples for New York Fashion week and other events.

Gonzalez, addressing the court before sentencing, said she deeply regretted not meticulously complying with US laws and that her only wish is to hug once more her 103-year-old mother.

‘Micro-manager’ with ‘opulent lifestyle’

“From the bottom of my heart, I apologise to the United States of America. I never intended to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude,” she said holding back tears. “Under pressure, I made poor decisions.”

Prosecutors countered that Gonzalez had acquired great wealth and an opulent lifestyle, which contrasted with the couriers she recruited to smuggle her merchandise into the United States.

The couriers were instructed to say that the items were gifts for their relatives if they were asked any questions by customs agents.

Some of the hides were from caiman, a Central and South American crocodilian of the Alligatoridae family. Photo / Lucas Ninno

“Her mission turned into producing felons,” said Watts-Fitzgerald. “She tried to rewrite the law for herself, to do it her way.”

According to the testimony of her co-defendants and former employees, ahead of important fashion events, Gonzalez, described as a micro-manager, would recruit as many as 40 passengers to carry four designer handbags each on commercial flights.

In this way, prosecutors estimate that she smuggled goods that fetched as much as $2 million (NZ$3.37m) in the US. Gonzalez’s attorneys disputed the claim and said each skin cost only around $140.

All of the hides were from caiman and pythons bred in captivity.

Nonetheless, on some occasions she failed to obtain the proper import authorisations from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, required under a widely ratified international treaty governing the trade in endangered and threatened wildlife species.

In 2016 and 2017, she was warned by US officials against sidestepping such rules, making her conduct particularly “egregious,” Judge Robert Scola said in handing down his sentence.

Some of the smuggled goods were made from python skins. Photo / Joe McDonald

Prosecutors had been seeking a stiffer sentence of 30 to 37 months.

But Scola said he was taking into account the nearly 14 months she spent in harsher conditions in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition.

Gonzalez, who has been free on a bond under confinement at her daughter’s home in Miami, must surrender on June 6 to begin her sentence.

Although trade in the skins used by Gonzalez was not prohibited, they came from protected wildlife that requires close monitoring under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known by its initials as CITES.

Salma Hayek, Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham are among celebrities who bought Gonzalez’s carefully crafted handbags. Her work also was included in a 2008 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Gonzalez’s attorneys showed in court a video, from 2019, of top buyers from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praising the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity — comments prosecutor Watts-Fitzgerald said the retailers likely regret today.

“They must be regretting they were ever put up to that and if they heard it was presented in court they would cringe,” said Watts-Fitzgerald. “They have their own brand to protect.”

Joshua Goodman is a Miami-based investigative reporter who writes about the intersection of crime, corruption, drug trafficking and politics in Latin America. He previously spent two decades reporting from South America.