Mexican drug trafficker 'El Mayo' sentenced to life in prison in United States

Mexican drug trafficker Ismael El Mayo Zambada, one of the world's most powerful and wealthy organized crime bosses, was sentenced Monday to life in a U.S. prison for being one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The 76-year-old is the former right-hand man of the organization's founder and leader, Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

Zambada was arrested at a Texas airport in July 2024 under unclear circumstances, with allegations that a son of El Chapo had kidnapped him in an apparent attempt to curry favor with U.S. authorities.

In a packed New York courtroom, the white-haired Zambada appeared frail as he was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 15 billion dollars.

Dressed in a tan jumpsuit, he read a prepared statement in Spanish in which he made an extraordinary appeal to young people to stay away from violence.

Zambada, a former farmworker from the mountainous state of Sinaloa, said he grew up in "an environment where violence and crime seemed normal, but now I know that's no excuse."

"Violence must end in Mexico and elsewhere...No one wins in a war like this," he added. "To the next generation I say this: Choose a different path."

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, who also presided over the trial of El Chapo, said that the amount of drugs trafficked and the number of murders attributed to Zambada justified his sentence.

"He is going to spend the rest of his days in prison. He has accepted that," Cogan said during the roughly 30-minute hearing.

Zambada pleaded guilty in August 2025 to several charges related to his leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, under a plea agreement in which  prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.