Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, founding leader of the legendary Sinaloa cartel, was to be sentenced yesterday in New York, a ruling expected to send Mexico’s last old-school druglord to prison for life.
After a journey from poor farmworker to one of the world’s most powerful and wealthy criminal bosses, Zambada was arrested at a US airport in July 2024.
He claims he was tricked by a cartel ally into boarding a plane that delivered him into the hands of US authorities.
Known for keeping a low profile and avoiding being photographed, Zambada, now 76 years old, spent decades rising through the cartel ranks, evading both capture and multiple assassination attempts.
He was born in 1950 in Sinaloa — a rugged mountainous state of Mexico known for producing corn, beans, cattle and some of the world’s most notorious drug traffickers.
His early years coincided with the emergence of Sinaloa as a marijuana and opium growing region — and eventually a transit point for Colombian cocaine going to the US.
Mexico’s drug violence has surged since then.
Since 2006, almost half a million people have been killed, and 130,000 are missing, government estimates show.
Zambada began his criminal career with the Guadalajara and Juarez cartels, working alongside Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and “The Lord of the Skies” Amado Carrillo Fuentes — both also from Sinaloa.
However, he eventually struck out, working alongside another Sinaloan, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, to establish the Sinaloa cartel in the 1980s and 1990s.
With Zambada playing a key role in paying off officials, setting up distribution networks across the US, and moving billions of dollars back to Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel soon became the world’s largest.
It is one of six Mexican drug gangs that US President Donald Trump has designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
US Court documents paint him as not just smart, but violently ruthless.
He allegedly ordered the killing of his own nephew, who was then found dead in a car by the side of the road.
US prosecutors said Zambada also engaged in “systematic assassinations” of fellow cartel members, police and the military.
In 2010, he gave a rare interview to the Mexican magazine Proceso, revealing that the Mexican army had come close to capturing him four times.
Known as the “man in the hat,” Zambada said that he feared jail more than death, and his arrest or murder would not change Mexico’s drug trafficking landscape.
Almost a year after being detained in the US, he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and organized crime charges.
His former partner, Guzman, is already serving a life sentence in the US.
El Chapo’s downfall prompted an internal war within the Sinaloa cartel between Zambada’s supporters and El Chapo’s sons, which has left about 2,000 people dead.
El Chapo’s son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was on the same plane that brought Zambada to the US. Lopez was arrested and admitted to having kidnapped Zambada as part of his own plea deal.
The operation continues to raise questions nearly two years later, as well as tension between Mexico and the US over the FBI’s alleged participation.
The US has denied any role in the operation to bring Zambada onto US soil. However, the recent display of the aircraft that brought Zambada to the US as part of an FBI operations collection prompted Mexico to seek explanations.
A court in Brooklyn was expected to sentence him yesterday.
Under his plea deal with US authorities, Zambada faced a mandatory minimum term of life imprisonment without parole on a racketeering charge.
He also agreed to the forfeiture of US$15 billion of ill-gotten-gains as part of the plea deal, the US Department of Justice said.
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