Mexico questions FBI role in Sinaloa Cartel abduction
In a bold rebuke aimed at Washington, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has accused the United States of covert involvement in the dramatic 2024 kidnapping of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada. Sheinbaum insists that the U.S. government deceived Mexico about its role in Zambada’s capture, which she argues constitutes a breach of Mexican sovereignty. This controversy has sparked a heated debate over diplomatic relations and the extent of American intervention within Mexican borders.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, a notable figure in Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, faced justice as he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States on Monday. Alongside this, he has been ordered to relinquish a staggering $15 billion amassed through his illicit drug trafficking operations, according to a release by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The life sentence was issued by U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, who acknowledged the mandatory nature of the punishment due to the severity of the charges. He expressed his belief that it was a fitting sentence for the crimes Zambada committed.
Judge Cogan highlighted that the overwhelming volume of drugs linked to Zambada, alongside the numerous murders documented, was sufficient to warrant Congress’s decision to impose a mandatory life sentence. “The almost unimaginable amount of drugs attributable to him and the number of murders that we can document is enough to justify Congress’s decision to make this a mandatory life sentence,” he stated.
Zambada stands as one of the most prominent Mexican drug traffickers to face such a sentence in the U.S. since the renowned Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, another leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, received his life sentence back in 2019.
A photo of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia being detained by federal agents is displayed next to a Beechcraft King Air aircraft, used in July 2024 to transport Garcia and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of notorious narco leader “El Chapo” Guzman, to the U.S., at the War Eagles Air Museum, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. (REUTERS/Paul Ratje)
Garcia, 76, agreed to plead guilty in August 2025 to multiple charges, including racketeering conspiracy and continuing criminal enterprise, after the DOJ said it would not pursue the death penalty.
He was arrested in July 2024 alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Guzman’s sons, after their plane landed in the U.S. Guzman Lopez has since pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including drug trafficking and a July 2024 kidnapping.
Joseph Nocella, a federal prosecutor, told reporters after Garcia’s sentencing that Guzman Lopez had admitted to kidnapping Garcia in an attempt to secure leniency and credit from U.S. law enforcement.
A reward sign for former Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia standing next to a Beechcraft King Air aircraft, used in July 2024 to transport Garcia and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of notorious narco leader “El Chapo” Guzman, at the War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. (REUTERS/Paul Ratje)
“The United States made perfectly clear that we do not condone kidnapping and that he would receive no credit,” Nocella said.
Guzman Lopez has not yet been sentenced.
Garcia told the court during his sentencing on Monday that he took responsibility for the harm he had caused.
“No one wins in a war like this. To the next generation, I say, choose a different path,” he said.
Cogan suggested that Garcia be placed in a facility where he would receive adequate medical care since he was suffering from several progressive health ailments.
“Ismael Zambada Garcia spent nearly four decades poisoning American communities to make billions of dollars in profit and ordering the murders of anyone who stood in his way. Today, that chapter closes for good,” Nocella said in a statement.
Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison. (REUTERS/Gustavo Graf)
“He will spend the rest of his life in a U.S. prison, exactly where he belongs,” he added. This sentence was made possible by the tireless bilateral cooperation between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement, who refused to let El Mayo’s years of evading justice become a permanent state of affairs. We hope that today’s sentence brings some measure of justice to the countless victims of the Sinaloa Cartel’s narcotics trafficking and violence.”