Combatting Kleptocracy Laundromat - Human Rights Foundation

How easy is it for a dictator to launder their wealth and their reputations in places like the U.S.? Step right up and find out!

The Combating Kleptocracy Program first unveiled the Dictator’s Laundromat at the 2025 South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX, where it was an instant hit. Thousands of attendees learned about all the steps necessary for foreign regimes to launder and hide their illicit wealth in the U.S. – and how many industries have helped make it possible.

Experience the Dictator’s Laundromat

Discover how dictators launder their reputations and what you can do about it. Play the Dictator's Laundromat on the Story City app.

How do Dictators Launder their Money and Reputations?

Nov 4, 2025

Shell Company

Want the perfect tool to hide your dirty money? Look no further than a shell company.

Oct 29, 2025

Lobbying

It’s not just laundering money – thanks to American lobbyists, you can also launder your reputation.

Oct 29, 2025

Sports

One of the newest tools to help kleptocrats launder both their money and their reputations? The sports industry.

Other Programs

This program comes at a moment where AI tools made by Chinese actors with connections to the CCP are some of the most performant in the world, displacing tools made by corporations and associations inside liberal democracies.

Art is a powerful tool for dissent in closed societies, provoking constructive dialogue and creating space for debate beyond mainstream bodies of political discourse. Authoritarian governments around the world recognize the power of art as a conduit of change and systematically persecute, repress, or censor artists to silence political dissent.

All governments, especially those of dictators, frequently debase, manipulate, demonetize, and surveil currencies, confiscate property, and freeze the bank accounts of people they don’t like. Dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, and nonprofit organizations in authoritarian countries face enormous obstacles just to receive donations and pay bills.

So for many years, North Korean defectors have organized efforts to smuggle outside info into North Korea on USB drives to counter Kim Jong-un’s constant propaganda.