Ismael Zambada García, the veteran Mexican drug lord known as "El Mayo," was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Monday in a Brooklyn federal court, closing a decades-long career atop one of the world's most powerful criminal organizations.
The sentencing followed Zambada's guilty plea in August 2025 to racketeering and continuing criminal enterprise charges, after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. The court ordered him to forfeit $15 billion in drug trafficking proceeds. Zambada admitted to transporting at least 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine into the United States between 1980 and 2025 and acknowledged ordering the murder of his nephew, Eliseo Imperial Castro, shortly before his capture.
Zambada, who co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán in the late 1980s, was arrested in 2024 after being flown to New Mexico by Guzmán's son, Joaquín Guzmán López. He is expected to read a public letter accepting responsibility and calling for an end to violence.