(25 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York – 25 August 2025
1. Exterior of federal courthouse in Brooklyn
2. DOJ lawyers line up for news conference
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Pam Bondi, US Attorney General:
"As you’ve heard drug kingpin Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as El Mayo, has confessed to a lifetime of crime in service to the Sinaloa cartel, a foreign terrorist organization. Thanks to the relentless work of our prosecutors and our federal agents, El Mayo will spend the rest of his life behind bars."
4. Illustration of Zambada taking oath in federal court
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General:
"They are narco terrorists. El Mayo was one of the most prolific and powerful drug traffickers in this world. His partner was El Chapo. They were co-founders of the Sinaloa Cartel. They brutally murdered multiple people and flooded our country with drugs. Their reign of terror is over."
6. Illustration of Zambada speaking next to his attorney in federal court
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of New York:
"This is an historic day. With today’s plea, the Sinaloa cartel has been decapitated. Its two founders and leaders, Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, also known as El Chapo, and now El Mayo, both stand convicted. These defendants built a criminal empire in Sinaloa, Mexico. Their cartel grew like it was a cancer throughout the hemisphere. They flooded the United States with deadly drugs, including cocaine. Heroin, methamphetamine, and then fentanyl."
8. DEA agents enter courthouse building
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Frank Perez, defense attorney for Zambada:
"I think the outcome was good. He pled guilty. He wanted to accept responsibility. And he did."
10. Police vehicle pulls up in front of courthouse
(AP Video/Ted Shaffrey)
STORYLINE:
Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded guilty Monday to U.S. drug trafficking charges, saying he was sorry for helping flood the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and other illicit substances and for fueling deadly violence in Mexico.
Under Zambada’s leadership and that of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a regional player into the largest drug trafficking organization in the world, prosecutors say.
Zambada his plea in a Brooklyn courtroom, about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) from Mexico’s Sinaloa state.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi came to New York to herald Zambada’s guilty plea as a “landmark victory."
Sought by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades, Zambada was arrested in Texas last year, at the end of the Biden administration, when the drug lord arrived in a private plane with one of Guzmán’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López. Zambada says he was kidnapped in Mexico and taken against his will to the U.S.
Terry Cole, the director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that in his decades as an agent, investigators going after Zambada and other cartel bosses were sometimes told they were “chasing shadows” who believed themselves untouchable.
(AP Video/Ted Shaffrey)
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