Colombian Designer Sentenced To Prison For Smuggling Exotic Handbags

• Colombian designer jailed for smuggling exotic handbags.
• Wildlife protection laws breached in international scheme.
• Sentences handed out: prison, fines, and probation.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that Colombian handbag designer Nancy Teresa Gonzalez de Barberi is the founder of luxury handbag company Gzuniga Ltd.

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She has been sentenced to 18 months in prison by federal prosecutors for illegally smuggling handbags made from caiman and python skin, both protected species, into New York.

The indictment, dating back to April 2022, charged her with conspiracy and two counts of smuggling from February 2016 to April 2019. Gonzalez and her company pleaded guilty in November 2023.

 

However, the Department of Justice highlighted that Gonzalez violated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an agreement signed by both the U.S. and Colombia to protect wildlife.

While the Endangered Species Act doesn’t entirely ban the trade of such species, it mandates a permit from the host country, which was not obtained in this case.

Furthermore, Gonzalez, along with her co-conspirators Mauricio Giraldo and John Camilo Aguilar Jaramillo, orchestrated the smuggling by enlisting friends, and even employees of Gonzalez’s manufacturing company to transport the handbags via passenger airlines to the U.S.

These bags were later displayed or sold at the Gzuniga showroom in New York.

All three individuals, Colombian citizens, were extradited to the U.S. and faced charges.

Gonzalez received a prison sentence with credit for time served, three years of supervised release, and a special assessment.

Her company was ordered to forfeit all handbags, prohibited from wildlife trade activities for three years, and sentenced to three years of probation.

Additionally, Edward Grace, assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement, emphasized the severity of the scheme, stating that it involved paid couriers smuggling undeclared handbags made of protected reptile skins for profit.

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However, the investigation, conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Valley Stream, New York, with assistance from the Miami Resident Agent in Charge Office, resulted in prosecution by the U.S.

Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida and the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section.