FBI returns the stolen document signed by Conquistador in Mexico

The FBI returned a 500-year-old stolen document signed by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortez in Mexico.

The manuscript page was written in 1527 and is one of the 15 pages that was thought to have been transferred from the Mexico National Archive between 1985 and 1993, the US Agency said.

The page – which describes payments payments for expeditions – has been opened in the US and repatriated on Wednesday.

Cortez was a researcher who led to the end of the Aztec empire and helped pave the way for America’s Spanish colonization. The manuscript describes his journey in detail through what will become New Spain.

In his height, the colony extended into much of Western and Central North America and Latin America.

The missing document was written after Cortez was made governor of New Spain from the Spanish crown.

Mexico’s National Archives had counted the document among a collection of documents signed by Cortez – but found that 15 pages had disappeared when it was placed on a microfilm in 1993.

The restored page carried a number written in wax, which the archivists applied in 1985-1986, which suggests that it was stolen between the two periods of catalogs.

The Mexican Government requested the assistance of the FBI Art Crime team in finding the missing documents in 2024, noting notes which pages were made and how certain pages were torn apart.

The FBI said open source surveys reveal that the document is in the United States.

The agency did not reveal exactly where the manuscript page was found or who owned it when it was seized.

No one will face the prosecution of the theft, as the page has “changed hands several times” as it was stolen, according to the special agent Jessica Ditmer of the FBI team for an art crime.

The document “really gives a lot of aroma in terms of planning and preparation for unexplored territory then,” she said, outlining “Payment of Peso for a total gold for the cost of preparing to detect the land of spices.”

The so -called “spice lands” were areas of Eastern and South Asia. Europeans tried to find a faster commercial route with these areas, sailing west, but thus landed on America instead.

Cortes will continue to explore the Northwest Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula.

The repatriation of the document comes at a time of political tensions between Mexico and the US because of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and illegal migration across the US -Mexico border.

But the FBI says that as one of the largest antique users, the United States has been responsible to counteract artifact trafficking.

Dittmer said: “Such pieces are considered to be a protected cultural property and represent valuable moments in the history of Mexico, so this is something that Mexicans have in their archives in order to better understand history.”

The FBI said it was decided to find and repatriate the other pages that were still missing from the collection.

Another document signed by Cortez was returned to Mexico from the FBI in 2023.