FBI returns stolen documents signed by the Conqueror to Mexico

The FBI has returned the 500-year-old stolen documents signed by Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés to Mexico.

The U.S. Bureau of Investigation said the manuscript page was written in 1527 and was one of the 15 pages considered to be brushed from the Mexican national archives between 1985 and 1993.

The page (describes payment for adventure supplies) was found in the United States and was repatriated Wednesday.

Cortés was an explorer who achieved the end of the Aztec Empire and paved the way for Spanish American colonization. The manuscript details his plans for his journey through New Spain.

At its peak, colonies spread throughout most of North America and Latin America in the west and central areas.

The previously missing documents were prepared after the Spanish royal family became governor of New Spain.

Mexico’s National Archives counted the document into the papers signed by Cortés – but found that 15 pages were missing when it was placed on microfilm in 1993.

The page recycled comes with wax numbers applied by the Archives in 1985-1986, indicating that it was stolen between the two cataloging periods.

The Mexican government asked the FBI’s art crime team to find the lost files in 2024 and provided notes on which pages have been taken and some of them have been torn.

The FBI said open source research shows the file is located in the United States.

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

Jessica Dittmer, a special agent for the FBI Art Crime Team, said no one would be prosecuting theft since the page was stolen.

She said the document “does give a lot of flavor in the planning and preparation of the unknown areas at the time” and outlined “to pay for the preparation of the spice land in order to discover the preparation of the spice land, pay for the fee to be prepared.

The so-called “spicy land” is the region of East and South Asia. Europeans tried to find faster trade routes with these regions by sailing west, but did so fell in the Americas.

Cortez will continue to explore northwestern Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula.

The repatriation of the document occurred between Mexico and the United States during tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and tariffs imposed by illegal immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.

But the FBI said that as one of the largest antiquities consumers, the United States has a responsibility to deal with the trafficking of artifacts.

“A work like this is considered a protected cultural property, representing a valuable moment in Mexican history, so it is something Mexicans have in archives with the aim of better understanding history,” Ms. Dietmer said.

The FBI said it is determined to locate and repatriate other pages that are still missing in the series.

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