FBI returns stolen document signed by Conwistador to Mexico

The FBI returned a 500-year-old stolen document signed by Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes to Mexico.

The manuscript page was discharged in 1527 and is one of the 15 pages that were allegedly moved from the National Archive of Mexico between 1985 and 1993, the US investigative agency said.

The page – which describes payments made for expeditions – was discovered in the US and repatriate on Wednesday.

Cortes was a researcher who led to the end of the Aztec empire and helped to pave the way of Spanish colonization of America. The manuscript tells in detail about his journey through what will become a new Spain.

In the midst, the colony stretched mostly Western and Central North America and Latin America.

Previously, the missing document was written after the Spanish crown was made by the governor of Nova Spain.

The National Archive of Mexico counted the document collection signed by Cortez – but found that 15 pages were absent when it was put on the microfilm in 1993.

The restored page scored the number written in the wax, which the archivists used in 1985-1986, believing it was stolen between two periods of cataloging.

The Mexico government asked for the help of the FBI artistic crime group in the search for missing documents in 2024, presenting notes that the pages were made and how certain pages were torn.

The FBI noted that open source studies have shown that the document was posted in the US.

The agency did not find out where the manuscript page was found or the one possessed when it was confiscated.

According to Special Agent Jessica Ditmer from the FBI artistic crime “several times” changed their hands several times, no one will face persecution for theft, because the page “changed with their hands”.

The document “really gives a lot of aroma in terms and preparation for the unknown territory,” she said, saying “paying for the usual gold for the cost of preparing for the expression of spices.”

The so -called “spices” were parts of Eastern and South Asia. Europeans sought to find a faster trade route with these areas, floating west, but instead landed on America.

Cortez continued to explore Northwestern Mexico and Baj California Peninsula.

The document’s repatriation of the document goes during the political tensions between Mexico and the US over tariffs imposed by Trump administration and illegal US-Mexico border.

But the FBI says that as one of the largest consumers of antiquities, the US is responsible for counteracting the artifacts.

Ms. Ditmer said: “Such works are considered protective cultural property and are valuable points in Mexico history, so this is what Mexicans have in their archive to better understand history.”

The FBI said it decided to find and repatriate other pages that are still absent in the collection.

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