The leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael Zambada García, known as 'El Mayo', has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in New York, according to infohub.kz.
Federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, Joseph Nosella, stated: 'Ismael Zambada García, also known as "El Mayo", has been sentenced to life in prison.' The prosecutor called him 'the biggest drug trafficker of this century' and noted that life imprisonment without the possibility of contacting his family is an 'appropriate punishment' for the harm he caused.
Zambada was arrested in summer 2024 on suspicion of money laundering and drug trafficking. According to the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, the drug lord was handed over to the U.S. side by Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of Sinaloa cartel founder Joaquín Guzmán Loera. Journalists claim that Guzmán had previously arranged with U.S. intelligence services: their joint flight was supposed to end at the airport in El Paso, Texas, rather than in northern Mexico, of which Zambada was unaware.