A US court sentenced Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to life in prison Wednesday plus a symbolic 30 years, ordering the former mob boss to pay back $12.6 billion of the proceeds of his crimes.

Once the world's most notorious druglord, the 62-year-old former co-leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel was convicted in February of crimes spanning a quarter century, including trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana into the United States.