Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, along with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, ran the Sinaloa cartel.

Zambada will enter his plea in federal court in Brooklyn.

BROOKLYN — For more than four decades, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada ruled from the shadows. While other top Mexican drug traffickers were killed or extradited to the United States to face justice, Zambada remained comfortably ensconced atop his empire, exporting tons of cocaine, meth, heroin and fentanyl around the globe from his stronghold in the Pacific state of Sinaloa.

Long after the downfall of his Sinaloa cartel partner, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada continued to operate with impunity, always a step ahead of the law — until eventually it caught up to him, too .

Now the question is whether he’ll take others down with him.

Zambada,

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