On August 25, 2025, a pivotal chapter in the decades-long saga of international drug trafficking came to a close in a Brooklyn federal courtroom. Ismael Zambada García, better known as "El Mayo," the elusive and legendary co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, pleaded guilty to leading one of the world’s most powerful and violent criminal enterprises. At 75, Zambada’s admission marks the end of an era for a cartel that, under his leadership, flooded the United States with cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl, leaving devastation in its wake.
According to a press release from the Department of Justice, Zambada pleaded guilty to two counts contained in separate indictments—one charging him with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise for 35 years, and another for racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The charges span a breathtaking range of criminal activity: money laundering, murder, drug conspiracies, and kidnapping, stretching from the late 1980s through 2024. In court, Zambada’s response was simple but momentous. When asked for his plea, he replied, “Culpable,”—the Spanish word for “guilty”—as reported by Reuters.
The significance of Zambada’s guilty plea was not lost on U.S. officials. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the development as a “landmark victory for the Justice Department, our law enforcement partners and the United States of America.” She declared, “This foreign terrorist committed horrific crimes against the American people—he will now pay for those crimes by spending the rest of his life behind bars in an American prison.” Zambada’s sentencing is scheduled for January 13, 2026, and as part of his plea agreement, he has agreed to forfeit a staggering $15 billion to the federal government.
The courtroom was packed with members of the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies, all witnessing the downfall of a man who, for decades, managed to evade capture and prosecution. Zambada’s story is one of both myth and brutality. He recounted a life in crime that began at age 19, planting marijuana in Sinaloa in 1969. From those humble—and illicit—beginnings, he rose to become the principal leader of the Sinaloa Cartel from 1989 to 2024, according to his own admission in court.
“For decades, the Sinaloa Cartel—under El Mayo’s leadership—made billions of dollars by importing dangerous drugs to the United States—intensifying the drug epidemic in our communities by flooding our streets with cocaine, heroin, and deadly fentanyl,” said Matthew Galeotti, acting assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, as cited by The Dallas Express. Under Zambada, the cartel trafficked more than 1.5 million kilograms (3.3 million pounds) of cocaine, enough, prosecutors said, to kill 1.25 billion people. The cartel also laundered billions of dollars in proceeds back to Mexico, building a narcotics transportation network that spanned land, sea, and air.
Zambada’s confession was both broad and deeply personal. He acknowledged ordering murders, admitting that “a lot of deaths” occurred in wars against rival criminal groups and that “many innocent people” died as collateral damage. He also admitted to running a sprawling criminal enterprise with a “large number of armed men” at his command, and to orchestrating corrupt payments to police, military commanders, and politicians to guarantee the cartel’s impunity. “The organization I led promoted corruption in my own country,” he told the court, according to Associated Press and other reports.
He took responsibility for the harm caused by his actions, stating, “I recognize the great harm illegal drugs have done to the people of the United States, of Mexico, and elsewhere. I take responsibility for my role in all of it and I apologize to everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions.”
The rise of the Sinaloa Cartel is closely tied to shifting dynamics in the international drug trade. In the 1980s and 1990s, the cartel worked in coordination with South American supply networks, but as Colombian traffickers faced increased law enforcement pressure, Mexican groups like Sinaloa took a more central role in distributing drugs across the U.S. border. By the 2000s, the cartel expanded into fentanyl production, acquiring precursor chemicals from China and manufacturing the synthetic opioid in Mexico before distributing it in the United States. The profits were astronomical, with the cartel’s income reaching hundreds of millions of dollars per year, according to Zambada’s own admissions.
Violence and corruption were the twin engines of the cartel’s success. Local police escorted drug shipments, while corrupt officials warned the cartel of impending military operations. After the 2016 capture of his partner, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada consolidated his individual power, wielding “brutal violence, intimidation, and murder” to silence witnesses and deter law enforcement, as described in the DOJ release.
Zambada’s downfall began in July 2024, when he was arrested at a small airport in New Mexico after allegedly being kidnapped in Mexico by Guzmán López, one of “El Chapo’s” sons. The arrest sparked a violent civil war within the Sinaloa Cartel, pitting the “Los Mayos” faction loyal to Zambada against the “Los Chapitos” led by Guzmán López. The conflict has left more than 1,300 dead and 1,500 missing since September 2024, according to The Dallas Express. Earlier this year, 17 family members linked to the cartel were traded to U.S. authorities as part of a deal between the DOJ and a son of “El Chapo.”
Despite the magnitude of his crimes, Zambada has not agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities. His lawyer, Frank Perez, emphasized that the plea agreement is not a cooperation deal. “He recognizes that his actions over the course of many years constitute serious violations of the United States drug laws, and he accepts full responsibility for what he did wrong,” Perez stated. Zambada, Perez added, would not provide names of politicians or others who allegedly received bribes from the cartel.
In a written message, Zambada called upon the people of Sinaloa to “remain calm, to exercise restraint, and to avoid violence. Nothing is gained by bloodshed; it only deepens wounds and prolongs suffering. He urges his community to look instead toward peace and stability for the future of the state,” Perez said.
FBI Director Kash Patel underscored that the fight is far from over. “Today’s plea is a proud moment for the FBI and its partners as the founders of a notoriously violent drug trafficking organization, one that engages in an array of illegal activity including murder and corruption, face the consequences of their actions,” Patel said. “Our work does not end here. We will continue to relentlessly leverage everything at our disposal in our efforts to thwart the Sinaloa Cartel and put an end to their drug trafficking operations and the carnage that goes along with it.”
Zambada’s guilty plea, and the lifetime sentence that awaits him, send a powerful message about the reach of U.S. law enforcement and the consequences of a life spent at the helm of a criminal empire. The impact of his actions, however, will reverberate for years to come on both sides of the border.
