Mexico questions FBI role in Sinaloa Cartel abduction
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has sharply rebuked the U.S. government over what she described as American involvement in the 2024 abduction of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Sheinbaum said Washington lied about its role in the episode and argued that the operation violated Mexico’s sovereignty, intensifying scrutiny of U.S.-Mexico relations and long-running concerns over American intervention in Mexican security matters.
Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, a Mexican national, was sentenced Monday to life in a U.S. prison and ordered to forfeit $15 billion in drug trafficking proceeds, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan said the charges required a mandatory life sentence, leaving him no discretion, but added that he believed the punishment was warranted.
“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,” Cogan said.
Zambada is among the most prominent Mexican drug traffickers to be sentenced by a U.S. court since Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, another Sinaloa Cartel leader, received a life sentence 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 in August 2025 to plead guilty to several charges, including racketeering conspiracy and continuing criminal enterprise, after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.
He was arrested in July 2024 with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Guzman’s sons, after their plane landed in the United States. 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.”
