Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada sentenced to life in US prison

What the report says

Al Jazeera, citing AFP and Reuters, reported that Mexican drug trafficker Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was sentenced on Monday to life in prison in a US federal court in Brooklyn, New York. US District Judge Brian Cogan imposed the sentence after Zambada, 76, admitted under a plea agreement last year to crimes tied to his long-running leadership role in the Sinaloa Cartel, including moving vast quantities of cocaine into the United States over decades.

The report said Zambada pleaded guilty in August 2025 to charges that included racketeering conspiracy and continuing criminal enterprise, after the US Justice Department agreed not to pursue the death penalty. The offences carried a required life term. The Justice Department said the sentence was life without parole, linked to his role as a principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering violations.

Zambada was arrested in July 2024 after arriving by plane at a small airstrip in New Mexico with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of jailed Sinaloa co-founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Al Jazeera reported that Guzman Lopez has also pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, while El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado after being sentenced in 2019.

The case is significant because Zambada was one of the most prominent Sinaloa Cartel figures to face punishment in a US court. His lawyer had asked that prison officials consider medical needs when assigning him to a facility, while prosecutors warned in a court filing that loyalists could still pose security concerns if he tried to influence cartel activity from custody.