NEW YORK — Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded guilty on Monday to U.S. charges related to his decades-long leadership of the violent Sinaloa cartel and its role in flooding the U.S. with drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl.
Zambada, the alleged co-founder of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to charges that he engaged in a racketeering conspiracy and ran a continuing criminal enterprise that prosecutors said was responsible for importing and distributing massive quantities of drugs.
Those charges stemmed from his decades-long role leading the Sinaloa cartel alongside imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.
He agreed to plead guilty afte