Stylist Nancy Gonzalez, in 2012 in New York (Jamie McCarthy/Getty/AFP/Archives)
Colombia has extradited famous fashion designer Nancy Gonzalez to the United States on suspicion of exporting leather goods made from protected animal skins, Colombian police said on Wednesday.
Supporting video but without specifying a date, the police only indicated that Ms. Gonzalez had boarded a plane with her partner Diego Mauricio Rodriguez.
Both are suspected of having sent to the United States “purses and wallets made from animal skins”, some of which are “protected species” and “endangered”, said the police chief, General José Luis Ramirez.
The designer of clutches, handbags and wallets in snake or crocodile skin, whose luxury products are sold in boutiques in Paris, New York, Moscow, Milan, Seoul, Toronto and Taiwan, was arrested in July 2022 in the Colombian city of Cali (southwest) during a search of his home.
According to the police chief, both are being prosecuted in a court in the Southern District of Florida for “conspiracy to import and transport wildlife in violation of the law and contraband goods”.
The indictment issued by the American justice, and of which the AFP had a copy, specifies that Nancy Gonzalez paid plane tickets to several people bound for New York, Miami and New Jersey so that they take the products to the United States in their personal luggage.
The accessories were then found in the designer’s showroom in New York.
Nancy Gonzalez “gave instructions” to these people on “how to travel and transport” the goods and “what to tell” the authorities in case of suspicion, according to the prosecution.
During her arrest, Colombian prosecutors indicated that Ms. Gonzalez, 78, was suspected of having, at the head of this network, organized the sending to the United States between February 2016 and April 2019 of at least 200 articles. in python and caiman skins, obtained legally in Colombia.
But this type of import must in particular obtain authorization from the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which guarantees that this trade does not jeopardize the survival of the species.
Nancy Gonzalez’s bags, notably distributed in Harrods department stores in London and Bergdorf Goodman in New York, sell for up to 4,200 dollars. Salma Hayek, Britney Spears or Victoria Beckham have sported accessories from the brand, according to several sites specializing in fashion.
If found guilty, Ms. Gonzalez faces up to 25 years in prison.
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2023-08-30 23:26:00
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