US jails Mexican drug kingpin ‘El Mayo’ for life
Most high-profile Mexican drug lord sentenced in the US since 2019 expresses remorse in court
Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was sentenced on Monday to life in prison in the US, after a plea deal last year in which he admitted to shipping millions of kilograms of cocaine over decades as leader of the violent Sinaloa Cartel.
Zambada is one of the most high-profile Mexican drug traffickers to be sentenced in a US court since fellow Sinaloa leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in 2019.
In handing down the sentence at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court, US District Judge Brian Cogan said that even though he had no choice but to impose a life sentence, he believed it was the right punishment.
“The almost unimaginable amount of drugs attributable to him and the number of murders that we can document is enough to justify Congress’ decision to make this a mandatory life sentence,” the judge said.
Zambada, 76, agreed to plead guilty in August 2025 to charges, including racketeering conspiracy and continuing criminal enterprise after the Justice Department said it would not seek the death penalty. The charges carried a mandatory term of life imprisonment.
Wearing a beige prison-issue T-shirt over an orange long-sleeve shirt, Zambada was led into Cogan’s courtroom by two US Marshals and said: “Buenas tardes” – Spanish for “good afternoon” – to his lawyer, Frank Perez.
