Overview

• The FBI, NYPD and U.S. Department of Justice handed over the original 20 February 1527 Cortés page to Mexican officials on August 14 after a coordinated investigation.
• The manuscript records gold payment orders for expedition preparations and sheds new light on Hernán Cortés’s logistical planning.
• Authentication rested on a distinctive wax numbering system applied by Archivo General de la Nación archivists in 1985–86.
• No individuals faced prosecution because the document passed through multiple owners following its disappearance in the late 20th century.
• Mexico continues efforts to locate and repatriate at least 14 other missing pages from the same Cortés collection.