Massimo Mazzone

Massimo Mazzone is the founder of Ciudad Morazán, a ZEDE on the outskirts of Choloma focused on providing a safe and pleasant living environment for Honduran blue-collar workers. He is also president of 3C, a Latin American conglomerate active in pharmaceutical retail and wholesaling. Before founding Ciudad Morazán he spent his career in the telecoms industry and in management consulting.

Ciudad Morazán covers about twenty-four hectares outside Choloma, in the industrial belt where much of Honduras’s garment manufacturing is done, and it rents rather than sells: flats, workshops and industrial space, with private security, reliable water and power and a walkable layout, for workers who would otherwise commute from unsafe neighbourhoods.

That makes it the odd one out among the ZEDEs. It was not built for foreign entrepreneurs or for tax residency, and its residents are Honduran factory workers rather than expatriates, which is why it has been described as a libertarian city with no libertarians in it.

An Italian businessman long resident in Honduras, he also runs 3C, a group with interests in pharmacy retail, education and property. After Honduras repealed the ZEDE statute in 2022, Ciudad Morazán brought a claim against the state before an international tribunal.