Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada admitted in a U.S. courtroom on Monday to ordering murders and shipping millions of kilograms of cocaine during his decades-long leadership of the violent Sinaloa cartel.
Zambada, 75, faces a mandatory life sentence after pleading guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to charges that he engaged in a racketeering conspiracy and ran a continuing criminal enterprise that prosecutors said was responsible for flooding the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and fentanyl.
The charges stemmed from his decades-long role in leading the Sinaloa cartel alongside imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in a Colorado maximum-security prison.
Zambada agreed to plead guilty after the U.S. Justice Department announced it would not seek the death penalty against him or Rafael Caro Quintero, another aging Mexican drug lord facing American charges.
He appeared in court wearing a blue prison-issued T-shirt over an orange long-sleeved shirt and walked with a slight limp.
The courtroom, presided over by U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, was filled with members of the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies.
With gray hair and a full beard, Zambada smiled at his defense lawyers before formally entering his guilty plea.
Speaking softly through a Spanish interpreter, Zambada recounted a criminal life that began in 1969 when, at 19, he planted his first marijuana plant.
He admitted that under his leadership, the cartel shipped more than 1.5 million kilograms (3.3 million pounds) of cocaine, earning hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
He also confessed that the cartel bribed Mexican politicians and police for protection and that he ordered murders of rivals, acknowledging that many innocent people were killed.
“I apologize to everyone who has suffered or has been affected by my actions,” Zambada said, reading from a prepared statement in Spanish.
Mexico this month sent more than two dozen suspected cartel members to the U.S., amid rising pressure from President Donald Trump on Mexico to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organizations.
Mexico has said it received assurances from the Justice Department that it would not seek the death penalty for them.
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