Mexican drug kingpin ‘El Mayo’ sentenced to life in US prison

NEW YORK - Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was sentenced on July 20 to life in prison in the US, after a plea deal in 2025 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’s 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.

Zambada accepts responsibility

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.

In brief remarks to the court, Zambada said he took responsibility for the harm his actions had caused.

“No one wins in a war like this. To the next generation, I say, choose a different path,” Zambada said.

Cogan said he would suggest that the Bureau of Prisons place the septuagenarian Zambada in a facility where he would receive adequate medical care.

The judge said Zambada was suffering several progressive health ailments, which he did not specify, and said his decision to plead guilty rather than go to trial spared the government considerable time and expense.

“I’m not saying he should be assigned to a camp as a reward for that,” Cogan said, referring to a minimum-security facility. “To the extent there’s doubt about what’s needed medically, give him the doubt.”

A dramatic arrest

Zambada was arrested in July 2024 alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Guzman’s sons, after their plane landed at a small airstrip in New Mexico.

Guzman Lopez has since pleaded guilty to charges, including drug trafficking and the July 2024 kidnapping of someone referred to in court papers as “Individual A.”

Joseph Nocella, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, told reporters after Zambada’s sentencing that Guzman Lopez had admitted to kidnapping Zambada in an effort to win credit from US law enforcement.

“The United States made perfectly clear that we do not condone kidnapping and that he would receive no credit,” Nocella said.

Guzman Lopez’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Guzman Lopez has also not yet been sentenced.

His father is serving his life sentence at a maximum-security prison in Colorado. REUTERS