The billionaire-backed techno-utopia at the heart of Trump’s controversial pardon
Former right-wing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was pardoned by Donald Trump earlier this week, cutting short a 45-year sentence he was serving for conspiring to traffic 500 tons of cocaine into the US. Hernández, who was sentenced in US district court last year, was formally released from a federal penitentiary in West Virginia on Tuesday. Trump defended the decision by claiming that Hernández was a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration.
“According to many people that I greatly respect, [Hernández was] treated very harshly and unfairly,” Trump wrote in a social media post last week announcing the pardon. “CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO Hernández ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON,” he added.
While it’s unclear who exactly convinced the president to issue the pardon— Trump attributed the decision to “the people of Honduras” — Hernández and his associates were heavily involved in an experimental libertarian colony in part funded by Trump donor Peter Thiel.
Prospera, located on the Caribbean island of Roatan, Honduras, is a for-profit city-state that seeks to put libertarian economic and regulatory theories into practice. It is, in other words, a gated community for the global elite to park capital with little government oversight and low taxes. What sets Prospera apart from traditional tax havens is that it is directly governed by a US corporation, which has been allowed to write many of its own laws and regulations. The organization, incorporated in Delaware and also named Prospera, has received $120 million in investments, including from Silicon Valley billionaires Thiel, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen. Andreessen has also donated to Trump and served as an informal presidential adviser.
This governing arrangement was organized in part by Hernández, who served two terms as president of Honduras from 2014 until January 2022. Prospera was permitted to launch the charter city after Hernández allowed for the creation of semiautonomous Zones for Employment and Economic Development, or ZEDEs. The ZEDEs were then overseen by a committee that included three of Hernández’s underlings and several American libertarian activists. Two of the committee’s members, Ebal Diaz and Ricardo Cardona, both of whom served in the Hernández administration, fled Honduras for Nicaragua in 2022 after facing corruption charges.
Xiomara Castro, the left-wing Honduran president who succeeded Hernández and remains in office, campaigned on the promise to do away with Prospera. After winning the presidency, Castro repealed the law that allowed foreign corporations to establish city-states. Prospera responded by demanding an $11 billion settlement from the Honduran government. Then, in 2024, the Honduran Supreme Court issued a ruling declaring ZEDEs unconstitutional.
Prospera, meanwhile, has continued to operate as its legal status remains the subject of international arbitration. Its founder, Erick Brimen, has attempted to tip the scales by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying US lawmakers to fight the effort to outlaw the corporate city and punish Honduras.
At least one Trumpworld figure has come to Prospera’s defense: Roger Stone, the longtime Trump advisor. In January 2025, Stone cowrote an article with conservative activist Shane Trejo titled, “How President Trump Can Crush Socialism and Save a Freedom City in Honduras.” In it, the duo called for Trump to save Prospera by pardoning Hernández ahead of this year’s Honduran presidential election. “A well-timed pardon of former President Hernández by President Trump could be the final death blow to Castro,” Stone and Trejo wrote, adding, “May the Próspera experiment prevail, the common good be saved, and global leftism be damned by the benevolent hand of President Trump!”
Stone has since taken partial credit for Hernández’s pardon. He claimed to have sent Trump a four-page letter from Hernández requesting a pardon. Stone denied being paid for his role in the pardon. Trump has not mentioned Prospera in his reasoning for pardoning Hernández, although last year he campaigned on repurposing US federal land to create similarly structured “freedom cities.”
It’s unclear what impact Hernández’s pardon had on the Honduran election, which was held on Sunday. A winner has not yet been declared. Rixi Moncada, Castro’s chosen successor, will almost certainly lose. Liberal party candidate Salvador Nasralla appears to have a slight edge over Trump favorite Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who is a member of Hernández’s right-wing party.
trump's corruption is unmatched by any previous president. He is beyond the level of any prior administration. He's breath-takingly evil and his sycophants are the most self serving group of politicians to hold their positions. Remember that next time any election rolls around, especially in 2026 and 2028. Get rid of the vermin in the White House!
This MUST get out there to the public. I know no one knows this.
Holy crap!