Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada Garcia, the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to operating a continuing criminal enterprise.
Zambada—who co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel in 1987 alongside Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, and Juan José Esparragoza Moren—was sentenced to life in prison on Monday (July 20) for operating the criminal enterprise, the United States Attorney’s Office confirmed. He pleaded guilty to charges of being a principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise and RICO. Alongside the life in prison sentence, he has been ordered to forfeit $15 billion.
“Ismael Zambada Garcia spent nearly four decades poisoning American communities to make billions of dollars in profit and ordering the murders of anyone who stood in his way. Today, that chapter closes for good,” stated United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella, Jr. “He will spend the rest of his life in a United States prison, exactly where he belongs. This sentence was made possible by the tireless bilateral cooperation between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement who refused to let El Mayo’s years of evading justice become a permanent state of affairs. We hope that today’s sentence brings some measure of justice to the countless victims of the Sinaloa Cartel’s narcotics trafficking and violence.”
In an appearance in Brooklyn federal court, the 76-year-old former drug trafficker called for an end to decades of violence associated with the drug trade, per the Associated Press. “Nobody wins in a war like this,” he said, apologizing for “the harm” he caused and urging others to not get involved with the drug end. “Violence must end,” he added. “In Mexico and elsewhere affected by violence, too many lives are lost.”
U.S. Attorney Adam Amir argued that Zambada frequently used violence when it “benefited” him, and has been accused of ordering the torture and murders of countless individuals, including his own nephew. The Sinaloa cartel is responsible for a large amount of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine in the U.S. drug trade, Amir added.
Zambada was arrested in 2024. He was allegedly the lead strategist and dealmaker for the Sinaloa Cartel. El Chapo, meanwhile, was convicted in 2019 and is currently serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado. Zambada has requested that he serve his sentence at a prison hospital, citing “age-related health issues” that require “ongoing access to medical care.”
