Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada

Ismael Mario Zambada García (born 1 January 1948), also known as El Mayo, is a Mexican former drug lord and former member of Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate based in the state of Mexico. Before he assumed leadership of the entire cartel, he allegedly served as the logistical coordinator for its Zambada García faction, which has overseen the trafficking of cocaine and heroin into Chicago and other US cities by aircraft, narcosubs, container ships, go-fast boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers, and automobiles.

Until his arrest in July 2024, he had never been arrested or incarcerated. He was arrested in El Paso, Texas, United States, and reported to be in US custody on 25 July 2024. He was arraigned in a Brooklyn based federal court on September 13, 2024. On August 25, 2025, during a court hearing in Brooklyn, he pled guilty to two of the 17 counts he was charged with, one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of running a continuing criminal enterprise.

Career

Zambada has historically worked closely with the Juárez Cartel and the Carrillo Fuentes family, while maintaining independent ties to Colombian cocaine suppliers.

In 1989, when Mexican drug lord Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was arrested, his organization split into two opposing factions: the Tijuana Cartel whose leadership was inherited by his nephews and heirs, the Arellano Félix brothers and the Sinaloa Cartel whose leadership fell to former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, Adrián Gómez González, Ismael Zambada García, Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, and Joaquín Guzmán Loera (El Chapo). The Sinaloa Cartel drug lords were active in the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo León, and Nayarit.