Sinaloa Cartel Co-Founder Ismael Zambada García Sentenced to Life in Prison

Ismael Zambada García was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan also ordered him to forfeit $15 billion in drug trafficking profits.

The 76-year-old co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel pleaded guilty in August 2025 to racketeering conspiracy and continuing criminal enterprise after prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty. Judge Cogan said the life term was mandatory under the charges. He added that the volume of drugs and documented murders justified Congress's decision to impose that sentence.

Zambada admitted responsibility for 85 underlying crimes and stated that from 1980 until 2025 he and the cartel transported at least 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine, most of it into the United States. He also admitted that employees paid bribes to Mexican officials to sustain operations.

Federal prosecutors said Zambada ordered the murder of his nephew Eliseo Imperial Castro months before his 2024 arrest.

They added that he directed retaliatory violence in 2023 that killed at least three people after cartel drugs were stolen. Zambada was arrested in July 2024 after being flown to Texas on a private plane by Joaquín Guzmán López, who has since pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and the kidnapping. Zambada told the court he took responsibility for the harm caused.

"No one wins in a war like this. To the next generation, I say, choose a different path," he said. Judge Cogan suggested placement in a facility that could provide adequate medical care given Zambada's progressive health ailments.

His defense lawyer had requested a prison hospital recommendation. Joseph Nocella, a federal prosecutor, said after the hearing that Zambada spent nearly four decades poisoning American communities and ordering murders. "He will spend the rest of his life in a U.S.