A United States federal court in Brooklyn, New York, has sentenced Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, a co-founder and longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
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US District Judge Brian Cogan imposed the sentence on Monday, July 20, 2026, after Zambada pleaded guilty to leading a continuing criminal enterprise and committing racketeering offences.
The court also entered a $15 billion forfeiture judgment against him as part of the plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors.
Zambada pleaded guilty on August 25, 2025, admitting that he was a principal leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and participated in racketeering activities involving drug trafficking, money laundering, murder and kidnapping.
The charges carried a mandatory life sentence. US prosecutors had agreed not to seek the death penalty against him before he entered the guilty plea.
Zambada co-founded and led the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 30 years in 2019 and is being held in a maximum-security federal prison in Colorado.
According to US prosecutors, Zambada led the cartel’s criminal operations from January 1989 until his arrest in July 2024.
The organisation was accused of importing enormous quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the United States while laundering billions of dollars in proceeds back to Mexico.
Prosecutors said the cartel developed extensive land, sea and air transportation networks to move drugs from South America through Central America and Mexico into the United States.
Under Zambada’s leadership, the cartel was also accused of purchasing fentanyl precursor chemicals from Chinese companies and producing large quantities of the synthetic opioid in laboratories across Mexico for distribution in the US.
The US Department of Justice said the cartel protected its operations through intimidation, kidnapping, murder and the bribery of public officials and law-enforcement personnel.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Zambada ordered violent attacks against rivals and persons considered threats to the organisation while paying corrupt officials to protect drug shipments and frustrate attempts to arrest cartel members.
US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. said Zambada spent almost four decades directing a criminal enterprise that caused widespread violence and supplied dangerous drugs to American communities.
He said the life sentence ensured that the former cartel leader would spend the remainder of his life in prison and expressed hope that the judgment would provide some measure of justice to victims of the organisation’s activities.
Zambada was arrested in July 2024 after arriving in New Mexico aboard a private aircraft with Joaquín Guzmán López, one of El Chapo’s sons.
He later alleged that Guzmán López deceived and forcibly placed him aboard the aircraft before delivering him to US authorities. The circumstances surrounding his arrival in the United States generated controversy and contributed to violent clashes between rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Before sentencing, Zambada’s lawyers asked Judge Cogan to recommend that he be placed in a federal facility capable of providing appropriate medical care.
Prosecutors opposed placement in some of the suggested facilities, arguing that loyalists still controlled parts of the cartel and that Zambada could attempt to influence its activities from prison.
Zambada had faced indictments in six US federal jurisdictions. Under the plea agreement, charges filed in the Western District of Texas were transferred to the Eastern District of New York for his plea and sentencing, while the remaining indictments are expected to be dismissed.
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