The music industry has once again been forced to dance to a tune set by drug trafficking. Ismael Zambada Sicairos, the subject of several narcocorridos (a subgenre of corrido, a type of Mexican ballad, that glorifies or narrates the lives of drug traffickers and organized crime), is now accused of being the head of a sophisticated criminal network that, through organizing concerts in Baja California and other front-business activities, allegedly served to launder money generated illicitly across the border by Los Mayos, the Sinaloa Cartel faction he has led for two years.

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On the day of his sentencing hearing in New York this summer, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada read a letter overflowing with remorse. After a decades-long career in drug trafficking, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel said his goodbyes with a mea culpa for everything he had done, without expanding greatly. Given his expected influence over the regional underworld, he dared to send a message to young people. “Choose a different path,” he said. “There is no honor in violence nor anything lasting in crime; they only bring pain and loss.” It is not known whether his second-born son knew about his father’s letter. But it is fairly clear that, if he did, he paid it no heed.

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