Former Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada pleaded guilty today to drug trafficking charges in the United States, saying he regretted helping to flood the United States with cocaine, heroin and other illegal substances, and fueling deadly violence in Mexico.
"I am aware of the great harm that illegal drugs have caused to people in the United States and Mexico," Zambada said through a Spanish-language interpreter, adding: "I apologize for all of that and I take responsibility for my actions."
According to prosecutors, under the leadership of Zambada and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a regional player into the largest drug trafficker in the world.
Zambada acknowledged the scope of the Sinaloa Cartel's operations, including the existence of subordinates who built relationships with cocaine producers in Colombia, oversaw the importation of cocaine into Mexico by ship and plane, and the smuggling of drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.
He admitted that people working for him paid bribes to Mexican police and military commanders "so they could operate freely," and that this started at a time when the cartel was just getting started.
Zambada was arrested in Texas last year. He pleaded guilty two weeks after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty against him, which his lawyer called an important step in resolving the case.
The lawyer, Frank Perez, said in court today that "the outcome is good," adding that Zambada "wanted to accept responsibility, and he did."
Zambada, 77, is scheduled to be sentenced to life in prison on January 13.
He has been in the illegal drug business since his teenage years, when – after dropping out of school in the sixth grade – he first planted marijuana in 1969.
He said he later sold heroin and other drugs, but especially cocaine.
From 1980 until last year, he and his cartel were responsible for transporting at least 1,5 million kilograms of cocaine, "most of which went to the US," he said.
Prosecutors alleged in the indictment that he and the cartel also trafficked fentanyl and methamphetamine.
Zambada was a good negotiator and cartel strategist, but also a business broker who was more involved in the day-to-day affairs of the cartel than the more extravagant Guzman.
However, prosecutors said Zambada was also involved in the violence, as he at one point ordered the murder of his nephew.
Zambada was found guilty on charges of participating in a continuing criminal enterprise between 1989 and 2024 and of conspiracy to commit racketeering which includes participation in a series of crimes from 2000 to 2012.
Prosecutors say he ran a violent, highly militarized cartel that had private security forces with powerful weapons and a group of "sicarios," hired killers, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture.
In his guilty plea, he admitted that he "issued orders to people under his control to kill others" in the interests of the cartel. "Many innocent people were also killed," Zambada said in an eight-minute address to the court today.
Zambada appeared unsteady for a moment as he arrived at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn; a sheriff took his arm to guide him to his seat among his lawyers at the defense table.
Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 in the same federal court in Brooklyn.
The Sinaloa Cartel is the oldest criminal group in Mexico, with various incarnations dating back to the 1970s.
US law enforcement authorities have been searching for Zambada for more than two decades, but he was never arrested in any country until he arrived in Texas last year on a private plane with one of Guzman's sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez.
Guzman Lopez pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in Chicago; his brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, pleaded guilty last month.
Zambada said he was kidnapped in Mexico and taken to the US against his will.
Zambada's arrest triggered bloody clashes in Mexico between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel.
The conflict appears to be between Zambada loyalists and supporters of Guzman's sons, known as Chapitos - a term that translates from Spanish as "little Chapos".
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