NEW YORK (AP) — Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was sentenced in a U.S. court on Monday to life in prison and called for an end to the brand of brutal violence he used to grow the Sinaloa cartel into what prosecutors said was the world’s largest drug trafficking organization.“No one wins in a war like this,” the 76-year-old Zambada said through a Spanish-language translator in Brooklyn federal court. He apologized “for the harm I caused and for the example I set.” He urged future generations to “choose a different path.”“If there’s one thing I can say that has value today, it’s this: the violence must end,” the Sinaloa cartel co-founder said. “In Mexico and elsewhere affected by this type of crime, too many lives are lost, too many families are destroyed, and too many young people are trapped in a cycle that leads only to prison or death.”
Violence was Zambada’s “tool for more than three decades when it benefited him,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Amir said.Zambada ordered torture and plotted murders — including his own nephew’s killing — as the cartel flooded the U.S. with tons of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs, Amir said. More than a million Americans died of overdoses during Zambada’s reign — many from drugs flowing from Mexico or the Sinaloa cartel, the prosecutor added.
