Former Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada set to be sentenced to life in prison

NEW YORK — Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is set to be sentenced in a U.S. court Monday to life in prison, a punishment guaranteed by his guilty plea last year to drug trafficking charges.

NEW YORK — Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is set to be sentenced in a U.S. court Monday to life in prison, a punishment guaranteed by his guilty plea last year to drug trafficking charges.

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Zambada’s sentencing in Brooklyn federal court is the culmination of the U.S. government’s yearslong fight to bring the long-elusive Sinaloa cartel co-founder to justice. He was arrested in 2024 after he said he was kidnapped in Mexico and flown to Texas.

Zambada ordered torture and plotted murders as he and co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán grew the Sinaloa cartel into the world’s largest drug trafficking organization and flooded the U.S. with tons of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs, prosecutors said.