El Mayo Zambada gets life in U.S. prison after cartel guilty plea

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the long-hunted co-founder of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, was sentenced Monday in Brooklyn federal court to life in prison, matching the punishment handed years earlier to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The sentence caps a yearslong U.S. pursuit of Zambada, who was arrested in 2024 after he said he had been kidnapped in Mexico and taken by plane to Texas. Federal prosecutors described him as one of the world’s most powerful narcotics traffickers and said his organization pushed vast amounts of illegal drugs into the United States.

Zambada, 76, pleaded guilty in August 2025 after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. Speaking through a Spanish-language interpreter at that hearing, he apologized “to everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions.”

He admitted to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy, and acknowledged responsibility for 85 underlying crimes, according to prosecutors. At his plea, Zambada said that from 1980 until 2024, he and the cartel moved at least 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine, with most of it bound for the United States.

Federal prosecutors said Zambada helped build the Sinaloa cartel with Guzmán into the world’s largest drug-trafficking organization. They alleged in indictments in New York and Texas that cartel leaders were tied to large-scale distribution of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and other drugs in the U.S.

Prosecutors cite killings and cartel money

In a sentencing memo, prosecutors said Zambada ordered torture and plotted killings while directing the cartel. They said he had taken part in “systematic assassinations” targeting cartel members, police and military personnel.

Prosecutors also said Zambada ordered the killing of his nephew, Eliseo Imperial Castro, known as “Cheyo Antrax,” after learning that Castro was allegedly collecting debts in Zambada’s name and keeping the money without permission. In another case, prosecutors said Zambada directed retaliatory violence in 2023 after a large load of fentanyl pills, methamphetamine and cocaine was stolen from the cartel, leaving at least three people dead.

Zambada also faces $15 billion in financial penalties, an amount prosecutors said reflected cartel proceeds under his leadership. At his plea, he said cartel associates arranged cocaine shipments from Colombia, brought drugs into Mexico by sea and air, and smuggled them across the U.S.-Mexico border. He also admitted that people working for him paid large bribes to Mexican officials so the cartel could operate freely.

Fight over where he serves time

Zambada’s lawyer, Frank Perez, asked that he be placed in a prison hospital, writing in a sentencing memo that his client has age-related health problems and will require continuing medical care.

Federal prosecutors urged Judge Brian M. Cogan to weigh security risks, saying some prisons may not be suitable. Judges can recommend a facility, but the Bureau of Prisons makes the final placement decision.

Perez argued that Zambada’s guilty plea should distinguish him from Guzmán, who was convicted in 2019 after an 11-week trial and is serving life at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Perez wrote that sending Zambada to the same facility would fail to account for his acceptance of responsibility.

Zambada’s arrest remains politically sensitive in Mexico. His lawyer has said Zambada was beaten, tied up, abducted and taken to a private plane by Joaquín Guzmán López, one of El Chapo’s sons. Mexico has said it is investigating whether its sovereignty was violated, after the FBI displayed the plane used to bring Zambada to the United States. Mexican government secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said the U.S. Embassy in Mexico had previously said no U.S. agency took part in the operation, adding: “The versions are contradictory. Someone lied.”

This story draws on original reporting from CBS News.