Most of Drug Boss’s $15B Likely to Elude US Recovery: The Brief

IT’S UNLIKELY the US will recover more than a fraction of the $15 billion it’s seeking from the Mexican drug kingpin known as “El Mayo,” who pleaded guilty to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy in federal court, Maya Averbuch, Patricia Hurtado, and Bob Van Voris report.

• Ismael Zambada Garcia, the Sinaloa Cartel co-founder, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison and agreed to forfeit $15 billion the government calculated he reaped from the drug trade. Touting the forfeiture order gives US prosecutors a chance to show their tough-on-crime bona fides as President ...