Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the elusive co-founder of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, will spend the rest of his life in a US prison. The 76-year-old kingpin was sentenced on Monday in Brooklyn federal court after a plea deal in which he admitted to running a massive drug enterprise that shipped cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and fentanyl to the US and beyond, reports the Guardian. ABC News notes that the life sentence comes without the possibility of parole. Zambada also agreed to forfeit $15 billion in drug proceeds.
In court, Zambada read a letter accepting responsibility and urging younger traffickers to "choose a different path," noting that "violence must end." "No one wins in a war like this," he said, per the AP. "Too many lives are lost, too many families are destroyed, and too many young people are trapped in a cycle that leads only to prison or death." Despite his seemingly repentant words, Brooklyn US Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. noted that Zambada "spent nearly four decades poisoning American communities to make billions of dollars in profit and ordering the murders of anyone who stood in his way."
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"Today, that chapter closes for good," Nocella said. Judge Brian Cogan, who also sentenced Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in 2019, called the hearing "anticlimactic," given the expected life term. Zambada's lawyers asked that he be sent to a federal medical facility amid reported cognitive decline, but prosecutors warned he could still wield influence from behind bars. Both CNN and the Los Angeles Times have more on Zambada's downfall.
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