Mexican drug kingpin Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada sentenced to life in prison

Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, a Mexican drug lord who trafficked substances into the US for the Sinaloa cartel, has been jailed for life.

The 76-year-old, who helped traffic tonnes of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs into the US, was arrested in 2024 after he said he was kidnapped in Mexico and flown to Texas.

He then pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in August last year, after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.

Speaking through a Spanish-language interpreter at the time, he apologised "to everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions".

US District Judge Brian Cogan handed down the sentence at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court on Monday.

Along with a life sentence, he also faces $15bn (£11.2bn) in financial penalties.

Prosecutors said that Zambada ordered torture and plotted murders as he and co-founder Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman - whose son Joaquin Guzman Lopez was arrested with Zambada - grew the Sinaloa cartel into the world's largest drug trafficking organisation.

Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay witnessed production at a fentanyl lab run by the Sinaloa cartel in 2023 - where he saw how gang members then transported the drug by boat to a "stash house" ready for shipment to the US.

Prosecutors: Zambada sent 'staggering' amounts of drugs

Prosecutors added in a sentencing memo that Zambada "was one of the most - if not the most - prolific and powerful narcotraffickers in the world", adding "it would be difficult to overstate the magnitude" of his crimes and the scale of the "corruption, violence, and other harm he spread".

Federal authorities said in 2023 that the cartel was sending "staggering" amounts of fentanyl to the US, where the opioid kills thousands every year.

In 2023, at least three people were killed in retaliatory violence that Zambada directed after a large cache of fentanyl pills, methamphetamine and cocaine was stolen from the cartel, prosecutors added.

Months before Zambada's arrest, prosecutors also said that he ordered the murder of his nephew Eliseo Imperial Castro, also known as 'Cheyo Antrax,' after learning that Castro was claiming to be collecting debts for Zambada and pocketing the money without his permission.

After his and Lopez's arrests in 2024, violent clashes broke out in Culiacan between factions of the Sinaloa cartel. At least 12 people were killed.

Cartel violence broke out in February

According to the Reuters news agency, Zambada's lawyer Frank Perez said in a 6 July court filing that his client was fully aware he would receive a life sentence when he decided to accept responsibility for his crimes.

Mr Perez asked Judge Cogan to recommend to the Bureau of Prisons that the elderly Zambada be placed in a facility where he would receive adequate medical care.

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It comes after violence broke out in February after the killing of 'El Mencho' Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

The 59-year-old was originally from the western state of Michoacan and had been heavily involved in drug trafficking since the 1990s.

He previously spent almost three years in a US prison after being convicted in 1994 of conspiracy to distribute heroin by a court in California.

(c) Sky News 2026: Mexican drug kingpin Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada sentenced to life in prison