El Mayo forfeits $15B net worth as he's sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking

Powerful Mexican drug lord and co-founder of the feared Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael Zambada Garcia, known as “El Mayo,” was sentenced to life in prison on Monday in Brooklyn federal court.

Monday’s sentencing comes after El Mayo, who co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel with Joaquin Guzman Loera, “El Chapo,” pleaded guilty last August to charges of committing a continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering, acknowledging culpability for 85 underlying crimes. He agreed to a mandatory life imprisonment and a $15 billion forfeiture.

“It would be difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant’s crimes and scale of the corruption, violence, and other harm he spread throughout Mexico, the United States, and the world,” federal prosecutors said in a sentencing memo that advocated for the drug lord to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Along with El Chapo, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2019, El Mayo was one of the highest-profile Mexican drug traffickers and one of the most wanted individuals by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Last year, when pleading guilty to the charges against him, the 76-year-old apologized to “everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions.” At the time, prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty, considering his guilty plea.

According to prosecutors, Zambada ordered plotted murders— including that of his own nephew— and torture as the Sinaloa cartel grew to be the world’s largest drug trafficking organization. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Amir said the Sinaloa cartel flooded the U.S. with tons of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other drugs.

Prosecutors added that Zambada “was one of the most – if not the most – prolific and powerful narcotraffickers in the world,” adding that “it would be difficult to overstate the magnitude” of his crimes and the scale of the “corruption, violence, and other harm he spread.” More than a million Americans died of overdoses during Zambada’s reign—many from drugs flowing from Mexico or the Sinaloa cartel, Amir argued.

On Monday, El Mayo entered the courtroom limping, wearing a beige prison outfit, and with white hair and a beard. He has spent the past two years inside a Brooklyn federal prison. Before being handed down his sentencing, he read a public letter taking responsibility for his crimes and calling for an end to violence in his native country.

“I did not go to trial because I did not want to deny the truth,” he read, adding that “violence must end” and urging younger drug traffickers to “choose a different path.”

El Mayo’s 2024 arrest shocked Mexico and Latin America alike. He was reportedly beaten and kidnapped by one of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, and was flown from Mexico to the U.S., where he was then arrested by American authorities.

“The sentence here is kind of anticlimactic because I have no discretion,” US District Judge Brian Cogan said. “He is going to spend the rest of his days in prison. He accepts that.”

Cogan said he would recommend that Zambada be sent to a federal prison hospital where he can be treated for what his lawyer described as a “complex of age-related health issues.”

Zambada suffers from a number of “progressive illnesses” and his mental state is “drifting toward cognitively impaired,” Cogan said. Judges often make recommendations about where inmates should serve time, but it’s up to the federal Bureau of Prisons to decide.