Former Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada admitted in a US courtroom on Monday to ordering murders and shipping millions of kilogrammes of cocaine during his decades-long leadership of the violent Sinaloa cartel.

Zambada, 75, faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment after pleading 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 flooding the US with cocaine, heroin and fentanyl.

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.

“They brutally murdered multiple people and flooded our country with drugs,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters. “Their reign of terror is over. He will never walk free again.”

Zambada agreed to plead guilty after the Justice Department this month said it would not seek the death penalty for Zambada or Rafael Caro Quintero, another septuagenarian alleged Mexican drug lord facing US charges.

Zambada wore a blue prison-issued T-shirt over an orange long-sleeved shirt and walked with a slight limp as he entered US District Judge Brian Cogan’s courtroom, which was packed with members of the Drug Enforcement Administration and other US law enforcement agencies.

Sporting gray hair and a full beard, he smiled at his defence lawyers before entering his guilty plea.

Speaking softly through a Spanish interpreter, Zambada recounted a life of crime that he said began when he planted a marijuana plant in 1969 at the age of 19.

He said the Sinaloa cartel under his leadership shipped more than 1.5 million kilogrammes (3.3 million pounds) of cocaine, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Zambada said the cartel bribed Mexican politicians and police to protect its drugs and said he ordered armed men under his command to murder rivals.

“Many innocent people also died,” Zambada said, reading from a prepared statement in Spanish at a quick pace. “I apologise to everyone who has suffered or has been affected by my actions.”

Zambada was arrested in July 2024 alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Guzman’s sons, after the plane in which they were travelling landed at a small airstrip in New Mexico.

Zambada’s lawyer has said Guzman Lopez kidnapped Zambada, which the Guzman family lawyer has denied.

Guzman Lopez has pleaded not guilty to US drug trafficking charges. US prosecutors have said they would not seek the death penalty for him if convicted.

Mexico this month sent more than two dozen suspected cartel members to the US, as President Donald Trumph ratcheted up pressure on Mexico to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organisations. Mexico has said it received assurances from the Justice Department that it would not seek the death penalty for them.

In a statement, Zambada’s lawyer Frank Perez said his client was not cooperating with US authorities.

Cogan set Zambada’s sentencing for January 13, 2026.

• A Reuters report