“El Mayo” Zambada speaks to Decide Brian Cogan (not pictured) in Brooklyn federal courtroom, as his protection legal professional Frank Perez appears to be like on, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, in New York.
Jane Rosenberg/AP
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Jane Rosenberg/AP
NEW YORK — Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada will spend the remainder of his life in jail after pleading responsible Monday to U.S. drug trafficking costs and saying he was sorry for serving to flood the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and different illicit substances and for fueling lethal violence in Mexico.
“I recognize the great harm illegal drugs have done to the people of the United States, of Mexico, and elsewhere,” Zambada, 75, stated by way of a Spanish-language interpreter. “I take responsibility for my role in all of it and I apologize to everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions.”
Beneath Zambada’s management and that of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa cartel developed from a regional participant into the most important drug trafficking group on the planet, prosecutors say.
“Culpable,” Zambada stated, utilizing the Spanish phrase for “guilty,” as he entered his plea in a Brooklyn courtroom, about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) from Mexico’s Sinaloa state.
He acknowledged the extent of the Sinaloa operation, together with underlings who constructed relationships with cocaine producers in Colombia, oversaw importing cocaine to Mexico by boat and aircraft and smuggling the drug throughout the U.S.-Mexico border. He stated the cartel raked in a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} a yr and admitted that folks working for him paid bribes to Mexican police and army commanders “so they could operate freely.”
U.S. Legal professional Common Pam Bondi flew to New York to herald Zambada’s responsible plea as a “landmark victory,” telling reporters at a information convention that he “will die in a U.S. federal prison, where he belongs.”
“This guy, ‘El Mayo,’ was living like a king,” Bondi stated. “Now he’s living like a criminal for the rest of his life.”
Bondi’s go to to Brooklyn underscored President Donald Trump’s anti-cartel campaign. His administration has declared drug cartels to be terrorist organizations, positioned army belongings off Venezuela and compelled the Mexican authorities at hand over a number of dozen high-ranking cartel officers for prosecution.
The kingpin’s legacy
Sought by U.S. regulation enforcement for greater than 20 years, Zambada was arrested in Texas final yr, on the finish of the Biden administration, when the drug lord arrived in a non-public aircraft with one in all Guzmán’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López. Zambada says he was kidnapped in Mexico and brought towards his will to the U.S.
His arrest, together with that of Guzmán López, touched off lethal combating in his dwelling state of Sinaloa between rival cartel factions, pitting his loyalists towards backers of Guzmán’s sons, dubbed the Chapitos, or “little Chapos.”
Thought of a great negotiator, Zambada was seen because the cartel’s strategist and dealmaker who was extra concerned in its day-to-day doings than the flamboyant Guzmán. Prosecutors have stated Zambada was enmeshed within the group’s violence, at one level ordering the homicide of his personal nephew.
Within the Sinaloan capital of Culiacan, useless our bodies lie in streets or typically seem hanging from freeway underpasses. Companies shutter early as a result of folks do not need to be out after darkish. Faculties grind to a halt throughout sudden bursts of battle. Folks starting from social media influencers to animal caregivers have been touched by the bloodshed.
Prosecutors promised to not search the dying penalty
Zambada’s plea got here two weeks after prosecutors stated they would not search the dying penalty.
His lawyer, Frank Perez, harassed after courtroom that the plea settlement would not obligate Zambada to cooperate with authorities investigators. The legal professional stated his consumer by no means actually wished to go to trial, and that when the dying penalty was off the desk, his “focus shifted to accepting responsibility and moving forward.”
Bondi famous Mexico’s opposition to the dying penalty, which is a consider its willingness to extradite suspects to the U.S. Though Zambada wasn’t extradited, she alluded to the nations’ understanding that “we cannot seek the death penalty” for many who are.
Zambada is because of be sentenced Jan. 13 to life in jail. He additionally faces billions of {dollars} in monetary penalties.
Zambada describes his drug commerce
Zambada appeared momentarily unsteady as he arrived in courtroom; a marshal grabbed his arm to direct him to his seat.
As Decide Brian M. Cogan described the plea settlement, the bearded ex-Sinaloa boss sat attentively, at occasions brushing his proper hand by way of his white hair.
Then, in an eight-minute speech, Zambada traced his involvement with unlawful medication to his teenage years, when — after leaving faculty with a sixth-grade training — he first planted marijuana in 1969. He stated he went on to promote heroin and different medication, however particularly cocaine. From 1980 till final yr, he and his cartel have been chargeable for transporting no less than 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine, “most of which went to the United States,” he stated.
Prosecutors stated in his indictment that he and the cartel additionally trafficked in fentanyl and methamphetamine.
Zambada pleaded responsible to costs of partaking in a seamless legal enterprise between 1989 and 2024 and racketeering conspiracy, which encompasses involvement in a lot of crimes from 2000 to 2012.
Guzmán was sentenced to life behind bars following his conviction in the identical federal courtroom in Brooklyn in 2019.
