Mexican drug lord Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada was sentenced in the United States on Monday to life imprisonment. Earlier, he reached a plea deal with prosecutors, admitting guilt in the shipment of millions of kilograms of cocaine over decades while leading the ruthless Sinaloa cartel, Reuters reports.

Zambada became one of the highest-ranking Mexican drug traffickers convicted in a US court after his cartel associate Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019.

Announcing the sentence at a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, US District Judge Brian Cogan said that although he had no choice but to impose a life sentence, he considered the punishment entirely fair.

The 76-year-old Zambada agreed to plead guilty in August 2025 to a number of charges, including racketeering conspiracy and participation in a criminal enterprise, after the US Department of Justice promised not to seek the death penalty against him. These charges carry the mandatory penalty of life imprisonment.