Agents from the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) executed an arrest warrant for 44-year-old Florentino Armenta Beltrán Valdez, alias “El Tino.” He is identified as the actual perpetrator of the homicide of Jesús Alfredo Cuén Ojeda, committed on July 2, 2012, in the city of Culiacán—fourteen years after the incident occurred.
The 59-year-old victim—a native of Badiraguato, an academic at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS), and the institution’s former Director of Sports during the tenure of his brother, Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda, as rector—was shot near the Culiacán Zoo while standing outside his vehicle. Initial lines of investigation compiled by the then-State Attorney General’s Office established a political motive behind the attack.
The case file notes prior irregularities in the justice administration process. In the years following the crime, Yesenia Armenta Graciano was arrested; she remained in pretrial detention for two years until her release in 2014, after judicial authorities confirmed acts of torture, sexual abuse, and violations of due process committed by local officials to extract her confession. Following that event, Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda solidified his political career by founding the Sinaloa Party (PAS), a party under whose banner he served two terms as a local deputy and ran for governor in 2016 and the Senate in 2018.
In 2021, he formed an alliance with Rubén Rocha Moya that led to his appointment as head of the State Health Secretariat—a position from which he was later removed, resulting in a political rift.
Like his brother, Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda was killed on July 25, 2024, in Culiacán. Although the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) initially maintained that the crime stemmed from an attempted carjacking at a gas station, the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) took over the investigation and determined that the local account was a fabrication involving tampered evidence.
Federal investigations and a letter issued by Ismael Zambada García established that Cuén Ojeda was killed at the same property where “El Mayo” Zambada—a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel—was abducted and transported to the United States.
Following Florentino Beltrán’s arrest by the FGE, the accused was placed at the disposal of federal prosecutors for an initial hearing, where the prosecution will formally charge him with the homicide of Jesús Alfredo Cuén Ojeda.
