Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the longtime co-founder and former leader of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel, has been sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole, bringing one of the most consequential U.S. prosecutions against a cartel boss to a close.
The sentence was handed down Monday by U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to spending the rest of his life behind bars, the 76-year-old drug kingpin was ordered to forfeit $15 billion in criminal proceeds to the U.S. government.
