Celebrity Designer Sentenced to Prison for Smuggling Handbags Into US Made From Protected Reptiles

Nancy Gonzalez attends the Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education's Fiesta 2009 in New York City on Oct. 13, 2009. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

Colombian handbag designer Nancy Teresa Gonzalez de Barberi, whose celebrity clientele reportedly included Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on April 22 for her role in smuggling handbags made from protected reptile skins into the United States.

Ms. Gonzalez, founder of the luxury handbag company Gzuniga Ltd., was arrested in July 2022 in Cali, Colombia, where she spent 14 months in prison before being extradited to the United States.

In November 2023, the then 70-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of smuggling for illegally importing accessories made from caiman—Central and South American reptiles that are related to alligators—and python skins between February 2016 and April 2019, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida.

According to the Attorney’s Office, Ms. Gonzalez relied on friends and relatives, in addition to people employed at her Colombia-based manufacturing company, to smuggle the designer merchandise onto planes bound for the United States. Upon their arrival, the accessories, which amounted to “hundreds” of handbags, purses, and totes, were then displayed in Gzuniga’s New York showroom to be purchased by high-end retailers.

According to her website, the designer’s collection of handbags has been sold in more than 300 luxury retailers internationally, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, and Net-a-Porter. Ms. Gonzalez’s bags were also available in her Toronto, Seoul, and Hong Kong boutiques.

Sentencing

Prosecutors initially sought a prison sentence of more than six years. However, the designer’s lawyers successfully managed to secure a shorter sentence of 18 months with credit for the time Ms. Gonzalez had already served in jail. She now faces only one more month behind bars in the United States, in addition to three years of supervised release. Ms. Gonzalez must also pay a special assessment fee of $300, per USA Today.

Sam Rabin, a Miami, Florida-based criminal defense attorney who represented Ms. Gonzalez in the case, told The Epoch Times via email that he and his partner, Andrea Lopez, believed the prosecution “should never have been brought.”

“What Nancy was accused of should have been handled as an administrative matter. It did not merit the filing of a criminal case. The prosecutors put a successful woman and her enterprise out of business,” he asserted.

“The prosecutors tried to tie her sentence to the value of her purses as opposed to the value of the farm-bred skins used to make the purses,” he continued. “We were successful in arguing that the value should properly be tied to the value of the skins used and not the purses.”

Ms. Gonzalez’s associates, Mauricio Giraldo and John Camilo Aguilar Jaramillo, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and smuggling charges. The former was sentenced to 22 months in prison—with credit for time served—followed by a year of supervised release and will be required to pay a similar fee. The latter, who entered a guilty plea earlier this month, is awaiting sentencing, scheduled for June 27.

Illegal Import of Wildlife

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) protects caiman and python.

Established in 1973, the international agreement, which features 184 signatories, including the United States and Colombia, is “designed to ensure that international trade in animals and plants does not threaten their survival in the wild,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the U.S. Department of Justice said: “The United States signed on to CITES in an effort to help protect threatened and endangered species here and abroad from trafficking.

“We will not tolerate illegal smuggling,” he continued. “We appreciate the efforts of our many federal and international partners who have helped with the investigation, extradition and prosecution of this case.”

Edward Grace, the assistant director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement, shared a similar sentiment, noting that “the Gonzalez case underscores the importance of robust collaboration with federal and international partners to disrupt illegal wildlife trade networks.”

“This investigation uncovered a multi-year scheme that involved paid couriers smuggling undeclared handbags made of CITES-protected reptile skins into the U.S. to be sold for thousands of dollars,” Mr. Grace said.

“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.”