Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, the cartel’s co-founder alongside Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was also ordered to forfeit $15 billion in proceeds generated through the organization’s vast drug trafficking network.
One of the world's most notorious drug lords has been sentenced to life in prison after a US court finally secured his conviction after decades of leading the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal empire linked to tens of thousands of deaths across Mexico and the United States.
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, the cartel's co-founder alongside Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was also ordered to forfeit $15 billion in proceeds generated through the organization's vast drug trafficking network. Federal prosecutors said Garcia spent nearly four decades overseeing one of the world's most powerful criminal syndicates, flooding American communities with cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine while ordering the murders of rivals, informants and anyone who threatened the cartel's operations.
Authorities estimate the Sinaloa Cartel generated tens of billions of dollars annually at its peak and has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths. Garcia was arrested in Texas in 2024 after allegedly being tricked onto a private aircraft by Joaquín Guzmán López, one of El Chapo's sons, who prosecutors say secretly flew him across the US border where FBI agents and Homeland Security officers were waiting. Garcia believed he was going to a meeting with local politicians and fellow cartel figures. His capture triggered a bloody internal war between rival Sinaloa factions that has reportedly left thousands dead or missing.
"Ismael Zambada Garcia 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," U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said following the sentencing. "Today, that chapter closes for good." DEA Administrator Terry Cole said the life sentence should serve as a warning to organized crime leaders worldwide. "Justice does not have an expiration date," he said. "No matter how powerful you become or how long you evade justice, DEA will not stop pursuing you."
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