Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was sentenced to life in prison in New York. The DEA assures that this ruling is just the beginning.
The DEA warning after the sentence
Terry Cole, head of the DEA, declared after the hearing that corruption was key to Zambada’s criminal empire. “He used bribery, influence and intimidation to protect the cartel from justice, both in Mexico and beyond its borders.”
Cole warned that the Sinaloa Cartel “continues to corrupt institutions and undermine the rule of law for criminal purposes.” And he added: “Whether it takes months, years, decades, we will not stop. We will not lose focus. We will not forgive.”
“The sentencing of ‘El Mayo’ is just the beginning,” Cole said. “It is a warning to all cartel leaders, global criminal enterprises and foreign terrorists. Whether you are traffickers or corrupt government officials, the DEA will come for you.”
Prosecutor Joseph Nocella Jr., of the Eastern District of New York, said the message is clear: “‘El Mayo’ will die in prison. And with the blood he has on his hands, it is exactly what he deserves.”
Nocella called Zambada “the biggest drug trafficker of this century” and claimed that the Sinaloa Cartel “flooded the United States and the world with drugs and made billions of dollars in profits.” He also detailed that, along with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – who is already serving a life sentence in the ADX Florence prison – “they corrupted numerous officials in Mexico to protect their criminal empire. And when corruption did not work, they resorted to horrible violence, including torture, kidnapping and homicide.”
The prosecutor considered the sentence “an adequate punishment for the damage that ‘El Mayo’ caused to countless victims.”
