Sinaloa cartel cofounder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was sentenced on Monday to a mandatory life sentence in federal prison after admitting he spent more than five decades helping build one of the world’s largest drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.

Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is set to be sentenced in a U.S. court Monday to life in prison, a punishment guaranteed by his guilty plea last year to drug trafficking charges.

Zambada, 76, ​agreed to plead guilty in August 2025 to charges including racketeering conspiracy and continuing ​criminal enterprise after the Justice Department said it would not seek the death penal...