Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada has pleaded guilty to United States charges related to his decades-long leadership of the violent and notorious Sinaloa cartel and its role in flooding the US with drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl.
Zambada, the alleged co-founder of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York to charges that he engaged in a racketeering conspiracy and ran a continuing criminal enterprise that prosecutors said was responsible for importing and distributing massive quantities of drugs.
Those charges stemmed from his decades-long role leading the Sinaloa cartel alongside imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.
Zambada agreed to plead guilty after the US Justice Department this month said it would not seek the death penalty for him or for Rafael Caro Quintero, another septuagenarian alleged Mexican drug lord facing US charges.
“I recognise the great harm illegal drugs have done to the people in the United States and Mexico,” he said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “I apologise for all of it, and I take responsibility for my actions.”
In pleading guilty, Zambada acknowledged the extent of the Sinaloa operation, including underlings who built relationships with cocaine producers in Colombia and who oversaw the importation of cocaine to Mexico by boat and plane and the smuggling of the drug across the US.-Mexico border.
He also acknowledged that people working for him paid bribes to Mexican police and military commanders “so they could operate freely,” going all the way back to when the cartel was just starting out.
Zambada was arrested in July 2024 alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Joaquin Guzman’s sons, after the plane in which they were travelling landed at a small airstrip in New Mexico. Zambada’s lawyer has said Guzman Lopez kidnapped Zambada, which the Guzman family lawyer has denied.
Guzman Lopez has pleaded not guilty to US drug trafficking charges. US prosecutors have said they would not seek the death penalty for him if he is convicted.
Mexico this month sent more than two dozen suspected cartel members to the US, amid rising pressure from US President Donald Trump on Mexico to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organisations. Mexico has said it received assurances from the US Justice Department that it would not seek the death penalty for them.
The charges Zambada pleaded guilty to were contained in two separate indictments the US Justice Department had secured against him, one in New York and another in Texas. The Texas case was recently transferred to New York ahead of the guilty plea.
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