Sinaloa cartel cofounder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was sentenced on Monday to a mandatory life sentence in federal prison after admitting he spent more than five decades helping build one of the world’s largest drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.
U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan imposed the sentence in Brooklyn, New York, after Zambada pleaded guilty last year to operating a criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy. The mandatory life sentence was triggered by the quantity of narcotics involved, including at least 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine.
As part of his plea agreement, the 76-year-old cartel leader also agreed to forfeit up to $15 billion, one of the largest criminal forfeiture judgments in U.S. history. Prosecutors said the figure reflects decades of proceeds generated by the Sinaloa cartel.
Federal prosecutors described Zambada as the organization’s chief strategist, saying he oversaw a sprawling criminal enterprise that trafficked cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the United States while relying on corruption, kidnappings, torture, and murder to protect its operations.
Multiple officials across the Justice Department, from FBI field agents, members of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. attorneys from Texas and Florida, held a press conference in Brooklyn to announce the historic achievement.
“We were not bystanders in this prosecution,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones said Monday morning, noting that federal prosecutors in his region “were part of a joint team that built this car and carried it over many years,” alongside partners across Brooklyn and Texas.
For decades, Zambada worked alongside cartel cofounder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman but largely stayed out of the public spotlight, earning a reputation among law enforcement as the group’s primary organizer and deal-maker. After Guzman was convicted in New York in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said Zambada assumed exclusive control of the cartel and expanded its fentanyl trafficking.
Zambada was taken into U.S. custody in 2024 after authorities say he was lured on to an airplane in Mexico by Joaquín Guzman Lopez, one of El Chapo’s sons, and flown to Texas. He pleaded guilty in July last year after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. His attorneys said he was not cooperating with U.S. authorities and requested that he serve his sentence at a federal medical facility because of age-related health conditions, a request prosecutors did not oppose.
Outside the courthouse, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. called Zambada “the world’s single biggest drug trafficker this century,” saying he and Guzman built “the largest drug trafficking organization that the world has ever seen.”
Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Tysen Duva said Zambada spent 50 years spreading “evil, poison, kill[ing], and corrupt[ing],” adding that the sentence sends a clear message that “drug kingpins die in prison.”
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DEA Administrator Terry Cole said Zambada transformed the cartel into one of the world’s most violent criminal organizations, overseeing industrial-scale drug trafficking while corrupting public officials and using violence to maintain power.
He said the life sentence demonstrates that federal law enforcement “will not relent” in pursuing cartel leaders regardless of their influence or resources.