Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada sentenced to US prison | Crime Stories

A US judge has handed down a life sentence to Ismael Zambada for leading a drug cartel in Mexico for decades.

Mexican Kingpin Ismael”Mother” Zambada has been sentenced to life in prison in the United States, after a plea deal last year when he pleaded guilty to shipping millions of kilograms of cocaine over decades as the leader of the violent Sinaloa Cartel.

US District Judge Brian Cogan issued the ruling Monday in a federal court hearing in Brooklyn, New York. Zambada is one of several Mexican drug traffickers to be sentenced in a US court since Sinaloa leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in 2019.

Zambada, 76, agreed to plead guilty in August 2025 to charges of conspiracy and continuing to commit crimes after the United States Department of Justice said it would not seek the death penalty.

The crime carried a life sentence. Zambada was arrested in July 2024 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Guzman’s sons, after their plane landed at a small airport in New Mexico. Guzman Lopez pleaded guilty to drug trafficking.

A Ministry of Justice statement said Judge Cogan sentenced Zambada to life in prison without parole for his role as the chief executive of an “ongoing business” and for violating the law.

“Ismael Zambada Garcia spent nearly 40 years destroying American communities to make billions of dollars to profit and order the execution of anyone who opposed him.” Today, this chapter comes to a close,” said US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella, Jr.

Frank Perez, Zambada’s attorney, said in court on July 6 that his client knew full well that he would receive a life sentence when he decided to plead guilty to the crime. Perez asked Cogan to approve the Bureau of Prisons for Zambada to be placed in a facility where he can receive adequate medical care.

Prosecutors from the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office said the prisons proposed by Perez would not be ready to deal with Zambada’s concerns, including the possibility that he would continue to control gang activity in prisons.

“These security concerns will continue in the future as individuals loyal to the defendant continue to control the Cartel,” prosecutors wrote in a July 13 filing.

Guzman is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in the US state of Colorado.