Ismael Zambada García, known as El Mayo, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Monday by a U.S. federal judge in Brooklyn, New York. The 76-year-old co-founder and leader of the violent Sinaloa cartel is one of the most high-profile Mexican drug traffickers to be sentenced in a U.S. court since his fellow leader, Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, was sentenced to life in 2019.
Zambada admitted to shipping millions of kilograms of cocaine and other substances over several decades as a top leader of the drug-trafficking syndicate. Prosecutors stated that Zambada ordered torture and plotted murders while he and Guzmán grew the Sinaloa cartel, which the U.S. has dubbed a terrorist group, into the world's largest drug trafficking organization.
The sentence follows a plea deal in August 2025 in which Zambada pleaded guilty to several charges to avoid the death penalty. He had been arrested in the U.S. in 2024. Even as the sentencing concludes, the circumstances surrounding how Zambada came to the U.S. continue to disrupt relations between the U.S. and Mexico.