“El Mayo” Led the Sinaloa Cartel Which for Decades Sent Tons of Kilograms of Dangerous Drugs, including Fentanyl and Cocaine, to the United States and Ordered Ruthless Acts of Violence to Protect the Sinaloa Cartel and Maintain his Power
Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as “El Mayo,” pleaded guilty today to being a principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise — the Sinaloa Cartel (the Cartel), one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world — in addition to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges. Today’s proceeding was held before United States District Judge Brian M. Cogan.
When sentenced, Zambada Garcia will face a mandatory minimum term of life in prison without the possibility of parole for leading a continuing criminal enterprise, and up to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the RICO count. As part of the plea agreement, Zambada Garcia also agreed to the entry of a $15 billion forfeiture money judgment.
Zambada Garcia was previously charged by indictments filed in the Eastern District of New York, United States v. Zambada Garcia, et al., 09-CR-466 (EDNY) (the “EDNY/SDFL/NDDS Indictment”) and in the Western District of Texas, United States v. Zambada Garcia, et al., 12-CR-849 (WDTX) (“the WDTX Indictment”), as well as in the District of Columbia (03-CR-34; 03-CR-331 (DDC)); the Northern District of Illinois (09-CR-383 (NDIL)); the Southern District of California (14-CR-658 (SDCA)); and the Central District of California (15-CR-566 (CDCA)).
The plea to the charges in the EDNY/SDFL/NDDS Indictment are the result of a joint prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Brooklyn and Miami and the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section of the Criminal Division.
Pursuant to a plea agreement, Zambada Garcia agreed to the transfer of the WDTX Indictment for plea and sentencing in the Eastern District of New York. Zambada Garcia will thus be held accountable in the Eastern District of New York for the criminal conduct in both indictments. The remaining indictments will be dismissed at the time of sentencing.
The EDNY/SDFL/NDDS Indictment charged Zambada Garcia with, among other things, being a principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848, from January 1989 through January 2024. The WDTX Indictment charged Zambada Garcia with, among other things, RICO conspiracy for his participation in money laundering, murder and drug conspiracies, and violations of state law for murder and kidnapping for conduct between January 1, 2000 through April 11, 2012.
Zambada Garcia’s rise to power began with the Cartel’s inception and ended with his arrest in July 2024. Previously known as the Mexican Federation, the Cartel is a drug trafficking organization based in Sinaloa, Mexico, that has since approximately the late 1980s imported lethal quantities of narcotics—including, among others, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl—into the United States and laundered billions of dollars in drug proceeds back to Mexico.
The Cartel’s operations initially focused on cocaine distribution based on cooperative arrangements and close coordination with South American sources of supply and distribution networks. This changed in the 2000s when the Colombians, seeing increased law enforcement activity, started to abandon their United States distribution businesses in favor of permitting Mexican traffickers to invest in cocaine shipments at wholesale prices, which those Mexican traffickers would then distribute in the United States. As a result, Mexican traffickers and the Cartel began to take a more integral role in moving cocaine from Colombia into and throughout the United States. Under Zambada Garcia’s leadership, the Cartel also recently branched out into the production and trafficking of fentanyl, including by purchasing fentanyl precursor chemicals from Chinese companies and producing many thousands of kilograms of fentanyl in laboratories both in rural areas and major cities in Mexico for distribution in the United States.
Ever since the Cartel’s expansion into the United States, its distribution networks have also supported money laundering efforts that have delivered billions of dollars in illegal profits generated from drugs sales in the United States back to the Cartel. Increased profits allowed the Cartel’s operations to grow a large-scale narcotics transportation network involving the use of land, air, and sea transportation assets, which eventually led to the Cartel shipping multi-ton quantities of cocaine from South America, through Central America and Mexico, and finally into the United States.
Zambada Garcia has devoted his efforts over decades to growing, increasing, and enhancing the power of the Cartel—and his individual power and position in the Cartel after his partner Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was captured. Under the defendant’s leadership, the Cartel has regularly used brutal violence, intimidation, and murder to silence potential witnesses and dissuade law enforcement from performing its duties. The defendant has operated with impunity at the highest levels of the Mexican drug trafficking world while being assured of his continued success and safety from arrest through his payment of bribes to foreign government officials and law enforcement officers. He controlled those corrupt officials and officers who protected his workers and drug shipments as his drugs were transported across Mexico and into the United States. Numerous witnesses have testified, including at trials held in the Eastern District of New York of El Chapo and corrupt former Mexican Secretary of Public Security Genaro GarcÃa Luna, that corruption at all levels was necessary to allow the defendant’s criminal enterprise to function so effectively at such a large scale: from local police officers who escorted the drugs through Mexico, to corrupt officials who informed the Cartel of military actions, thwarted capture operations, and consulted with the Cartel about proceedings and investigations against it.
United States Attorney General Pamela Bondi; Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Matthew R. Galeotti, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division; Terrance C. Cole, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); Todd M. Lyons, Acting Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Kash Patel, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Jason A. Reding Quiñones, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; and Justin R. Simmons, United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, announced the guilty plea.
“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. Today marks a crucial victory in President Trump’s ongoing fight to completely eliminate foreign terrorist organizations and protect American citizens from deadly drugs and violence,” stated Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
“With today’s guilty pleas, “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia and “El Chapo” Guzman, the two co-founders of the Sinaloa Cartel—one of the largest, most violent and most destructive cartels in history—will live out the rest of their days in United States federal prison cells without the possibility of parole,” stated United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella. “Zambada Garcia has now been held accountable for the tons of illegal narcotics, including cocaine and fentanyl, that he and his organization trafficked for decades, and the murders and other acts of violence committed in furtherance of that enterprise. Today’s guilty plea were possible because of the work of law enforcement personnel in the United States, Mexico and elsewhere. We hope that their hard work and the pleas can provide a measure of solace to the countless victims of Zambada Garcia’s narcotics trafficking and violence and their families.”
“For decades, under El Mayo’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel made billions of dollars by importing poisonous drugs to the United States, flooding our streets with cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl,” stated Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “With El Mayo’s conviction, the Department has now brought both founders of the Sinaloa Cartel to justice, and the growing list of international cartel leaders that have faced justice in American courtrooms sends an unequivocal message to those who seek to fill their shoes that the same fate awaits them if they do. Today’s guilty plea is a credit to the collaboration between the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section; the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of New York, Southern District of Florida, and the Western District of Texas; and our law enforcement partners.”
“Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada led one of the world’s deadliest cartels, pumping fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and meth into our communities,” stated DEA Administrator Terrance Cole. “His guilty plea proves no cartel boss is beyond the reach of justice. By taking him down, we are protecting American families and cutting off a pipeline of poison. DEA and our partners will not stop until every cartel network is dismantled.”
“After years of painstaking work, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations New York secured a superseding indictment last year charging Ismael Zambada with fentanyl trafficking,” stated Actingng ICE Director Todd M. Lyons. “Now, one of the world’s most prolific and dangerous drug traffickers is going to face justice for the lives he’s stolen and the illicit profits he’s raked in. This is more than a win for HSI. It’s a win for the American people.”
“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,” stated FBI Director Kash Patel. “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.”
“After years of evading justice, Zambada Garcia has been brought to account. With his conviction, his reign of violence and terror is over,” stated U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones. “He will never again direct a cartel that fueled addiction, spread violence, and tore apart families and communities on both sides of our border. This outcome was made possible by the tireless work of our law enforcement partners in the United States and abroad, whose courage and persistence dismantled the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations and delivered long-overdue justice to its victims.”
“For decades, the Western District of Texas has been on the front lines in the fight against the Sinaloa Cartel,” stated United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin R. Simmons. “Under Zambada Garcia’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel produced and trafficked thousands of kilograms of narcotics through our border, effectively infiltrating every city in our country, leading to thousands of deaths in our communities, imprisoning millions within the grey walls of addiction, and enriching himself in the process. Under Zambada Garcia’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel engaged in a years-long war with the Juarez Cartel, a war which directly affected not just the citizens of Juarez, Mexico, but also the citizens of El Paso, Texas, with multiple residents, including at least one U.S. citizen, being kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Sinaloa Cartel members. Now, like his co-conspirator El Chapo Guzman, Zambada Garcia will pay the price for a life of lawlessness, and using the ‘whole of government’ approach employed in this case, we will continue to systematically eradicate Mexican drug cartels and bring others to justice who enrich themselves to the detriment of Americans.”
“For decades, under El Mayo’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel made billions of dollars by importing poisonous drugs to the United States, flooding our streets with cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “With El Mayo’s conviction, the Department has now brought both founders of the Sinaloa Cartel to justice, and the growing list of international cartel leaders that have faced justice in American courtrooms sends an unequivocal message to those who seek to fill their shoes that the same fate awaits them if they do. Today’s guilty plea is a credit to the collaboration between the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section; the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of New York, Southern District of Florida, and the Western District of Texas; and our law enforcement partners.”
The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section, and as part of the work of the Office’s Transnational Criminal Organizations Strike Force. Assistant United States Attorneys Francisco J. Navarro, Robert M. Pollack, Adam Amir, Lauren A. Bowman and Rebecca M. Urquiola are leading the prosecution for the Eastern District of New York. Assistant United States Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg and Monique Botero of the Southern District of Florida and Assistant United States Attorneys Antonio Franco and Kyle Myers of the Western District of Texas are leading the prosecution for their respective offices. Trial Attorneys Jayce Born and Kirk Handrich are leading the prosecution for the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section. The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Northern District of Illinois, Central District of California, and Southern District of California provided substantial assistance. FBI, HSI, and DEA investigated the case.
This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).
