Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ sentenced to life in prison in US federal court

Case against Ismael Zambada García, who helped co-found and lead the violent Sinaloa cartel, unfolded in New York

The Mexican drug kingpin, Ismael Zambada García, known as “El Mayo”, was sentenced in a US federal court on Monday to life in prison, after a plea deal last year in which he admitted ⁠to shipping vast amounts of cocaine and other substances as leader of the violent Sinaloa cartel.

Zambada is 76 and one of the most high-profile Mexican ⁠drug traffickers to be sentenced in a US court since his fellow Sinaloa leader Joaquín “ El Chapo ” Guzmán ​was sentenced to life in prison in ‌2019. The case unfolded in federal court in Brooklyn, New York .

Zambada helped co-found and lead the cartel, becoming one of the most wanted targets by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies for decades.

He signed a plea deal last August, admitting charges including racketeering conspiracy and continuing criminal enterprise, after the ‌US justice department said it would not seek the death penalty. The court also ordered him to forfeit $15bn from drug trade profits as part of his punishment.

As one of the co-founders of the Sinaloa cartel, El Mayo is one of the biggest drug traffickers in the history of the US-Mexico drug war. He was accused of trafficking tons of cocaine, marijuana, heroin and, in recent years, fentanyl to the US and other parts of the world.

Prosecutors also accused him of being one of the leaders of a violent organization that led to corruption among Mexican politicians, military officials and law enforcement agents.

Zambada, who has spent nearly two years inside a Brooklyn federal prison, limped inside the courtroom. He was wearing a beige prison outfit and had white hair and a beard.

Before his sentencing, Zambada read a public letter, saying that he took responsibility for his crimes and calling for an end to the violence that has plagued Mexico for decades during the drug-fueled conflict.

“I did not go to trial because I did not want to deny the truth,” Zambada read aloud in court, adding that “violence must end” and urging the next generation of drug traffickers to “choose a different path”.

While El Chapo is better known as the face of the Sinaloa cartel, the elderly El Mayo was regarded as the elusive, behind the scenes leader running the operations, with a low profile and few public sightings.

El Mayo’s arrest in the US in 2024 came as a surprise. During a mysterious operation, he was known to have been beaten and kidnapped by one of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, and was flown across the US border to New Mexico, where he was arrested by US federal agents.

It remains unknown whether US agencies helped facilitate the cross-border kidnapping operation that led to his arrest. Guzmán López pled guilty in an abduction case late last year and has become a cooperating witness for the US justice department.

El Mayo’s arrest led to a splintering of the Sinaloa cartel, with El Mayo’s son and El Chapo’s sons leading different factions, in a raging intra-cartel battle for territory that has ravaged parts of Mexico.

El Mayo’s sentencing comes at a tense time in US-Mexico relations, as the Trump administration has escalated its pressure on the Mexican government to crack down harder on criminal groups. Last year, the Trump administration designated the Sinaloa cartel as a terrorist group and has threatened US military intervention to attack the cartel and other drug-trafficking organizations.

US district judge Brian Cogan, who also presided over El Chapo’s trial, has been hearing the case in New York .

Cogan acknowledged that the sentencing hearing was “anticlimactic” because of the plea agreement. All parties involved understood that Zambada would spend the rest of his life in prison, the judge said.

Frank Perez, a lawyer for El Mayo, ​had said in a 6 July court filing that his client was fully aware he would receive a life sentence when he decided to accept responsibility for his crimes. Perez asked Cogan to recommend to the US Bureau of Prisons that his client, as a septuagenarian, be placed in a ⁠facility where he would receive adequate medical care.

Prosecutors with the Brooklyn US attorney’s office said the prisons ​suggested by Perez may not ​be equipped to handle the security concerns posed by Zambada, including the ​possibility that he could ‌continue to direct ​cartel activities from ​behind bars.

“Those security concerns will continue for the foreseeable future because individuals loyal to the defendant continue to control the cartel,” the prosecutors wrote in a 13 July filing.

Zambada’s defense attorneys on Monday requested that the judge recommend a federal medical facility, rather than a traditional prison, due to his medical conditions. Health details are redacted in court records, but the judge mentioned during the sentencing hearing that Zambada is “drifting” towards being “cognitively impaired”.

Mexican outlets have reported Zambada is dealing with the early stages of dementia. The Bureau of Prisons still has to evaluate where Zambada will be sent to serve the rest of his days.

El Chapo is serving his life sentence at a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

Frank Perez, one of Zambada’s attorneys, said during the sentencing hearing that his client did not cooperate with the US government, neither providing information to US officials about other cartel members or leaders, nor Mexican officials who have protected the cartel’s drug-trafficking business.