Co-Founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada Garcia, Pleads Guilty to Engaging in a Continuing Criminal Enterprise and Racketeering

Ismael Zambada Garcia also known as El Mayo, 75, of Sinaloa, Mexico, 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 a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charge.

“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,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “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.”

“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,” said 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.”

“Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada led one of the world’s deadliest cartels, pumping fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and meth into our communities,” said Administrator Terrance Cole of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). “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, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York secured a superseding indictment last year charging Ismael Zambada with fentanyl trafficking,” said Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement 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.”

“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. “El Mayo’s conviction is the latest milestone in the Department’s historic efforts to eliminate the harms wrought by cartels and bring their leaders to justice in American courtrooms. The Criminal Division and our partners will continue our relentless pursuit of these notorious criminal organizations to ensure that they are held accountable and to make our communities safer.”

“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 U.S. federal prison cells without the possibility of parole,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY). “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 was 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.”

“After years of evading justice, Zambada Garcia has been brought to account,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida (SDFL). “With his conviction, his reign of violence and terror is over. 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,” said U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas. “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.”

Zambada Garcia was previously charged by indictments filed in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), the Western District of Texas (WDTX), the District of Columbia, the Northern District of Illinois, the Southern District of California, and the Central District of California.

Today’s plea is 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 (NDDS).

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 is thus being 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 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 Jan. 1, 2000, and 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 since approximately the late 1980s has 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 U.S. 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.

The Cartel’s distribution networks also have supported money laundering efforts that have delivered billions of dollars in illegal profits generated from drug 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 to growing his individual power and position in the Cartel after his partner El Chapo was captured in 2016. Under Zambada Garcia’s leadership, the Cartel regularly used brutal violence, intimidation, and murder to silence potential witnesses and dissuade law enforcement from performing its duties. Zambada Garcia 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 Mexican 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 the trials of El Chapo and corrupt former Mexican Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, that corruption at all levels was necessary to allow the Zambada Garcia’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.

Zambada Garcia’s sentencing is set for Jan. 13, 2026. Zambada Garcia will face a mandatory minimum term of life in prison for leading a continuing criminal enterprise, and a maximum sentence of life in prison on the RICO count. As part of the plea agreement, Zambada Garcia also agreed to the entry at sentencing of a $15 billion forfeiture money judgment.

FBI, HSI, and DEA investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Jayce Born and Kirk Handrich are leading the prosecution for the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, along with the Eastern District of New York’s International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section as part of the work of EDNY’s Transnational Criminal Organizations Strike Force and the Southern District of Florida’s International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section. Assistant U.S. 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 U.S. Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg and Monique Botero are leading the prosecution for the Southern District of Florida. The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Northern District of Illinois, Central District of California, and Southern District of California provided substantial assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Antonio Franco and Kyle Myers are leading the prosecution for the Western District of Texas.

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 Neighborhoods (PSN).