Fashion designer Nancy Gonzalez has been convicted of smuggling crocodile handbags into the US for New York Fashion Week

A famous handbag designer whose products have been used by Britney Spears and on Sex And The City has been jailed for smuggling crocodile handbags into the US for fashion shows.

Nancy Gonzalez, 71, admitted to recruiting couriers to carry as many as four products each on commercial flights from her native Colombia to the US. New York Fashion Week, among other high-profile events.

Gonzalez, who was arrested in Cali in 2022 and later extradited to the US, was sentenced to 18 months by a federal court in California. Miami Monday for violating U.S. wildlife laws.

The handbags, made from the skins of caimans and pythons bred in captivity, were worth as much as $2 million, according to prosecutors, but the designer’s lawyers said each skin cost only about $140.

At times she failed to obtain proper import permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, something backed by a widely ratified international treaty governing trade in endangered species, the court heard.

Fighting back tears, Gonzalez told the court before the sentencing that she deeply regretted not fully adhering to U.S. laws.

She said: “From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to the United States of America. It was never my intention to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude. I have made poor decisions under pressure.”

Salma Hayek, Britney Spears And Victoria Beckham are among the celebrities who purchased Gonzalez’s carefully crafted handbags.

Her work was also included in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2008.

In court, her lawyers played a 2019 video in which top brass from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praised the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity.

But prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said the shopkeepers “must regret ever experiencing this and if they heard it was brought before the court they would cringe”.

“They have their own brand to protect,” he added.

Mr Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behavior to that of drug traffickers, said her activities were “all driven by the money”.

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Her lawyers argued for leniency for the woman who, they said, founded “the very first luxury, high-end fashion company from a Third World country” that later competed with industry giants such as Dior, Prada and Gucci.

They also argued that only 1% of the goods they imported into the US did not have proper paperwork and were samples for New York Fashion Week and other events.

Prosecutors had sought a harsher sentence of 30 to 37 months. But the judge said he was taking into account the nearly 14 months she had spent in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition.

She was ordered to begin her sentence on June 6.

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