The Human Rights Foundation Partners with Story City for The Dictator's Laundromat

💸Dirty cash. Laundered money. Whitewashed reputations. Welcome to HRF's Dictator’s Laundromat.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF)  is partnering with Story City to bring their pop-up installation,The Dictator’s Laundromat, to life as an interactive, location-based experience in laundromats around the world – or wherever you clean your dirty laundry.

Originally launched to critical acclaim on location at SXSW 2025, The Dictator’s Laundromat is an experience created by the HRF’s Combating Kleptocracy program designed to expose and disrupt corruption. Now, for the first time, this experience is available on the Story City app available to curious players with mobile phones around the world – ready to play in less time than it takes to run a load through the spin cycle.

ABOUT THE HRF DICTATOR’S LAUNDROMAT

💸Dirty cash. Whitewashed reputations. Welcome to HRF's Dictator’s Laundromat.

Dictators don’t just steal billions; they launder their crimes through shell companies, lobbyists, offshore accounts, and much more to stay in power. From dirty cash to a whitewashed image, kleptocrats use money laundering to fund corruption and silence dissent.

HRF’s Dictator’s Laundromat pulls back the curtain on how dictators manipulate financial systems to clean their reputations to entrench their rule.

Ready to launder your money and clean your reputation?‍
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HOW TO PLAY

1. Download the Story City app to explore HRF’s Dictator’s Laundromat.
2. Create an account to access this and dozens of other free interactive adventures.
3. Add HRF’s Dictator’s Laundromat to your library. 
4. “Place the story” in your city, or start your adventure at a laundromat near you on the map.
5. Make your place selection public or private and save your location placement. 
6. Take your dirty laundry to the start location and dive in. 
7. Tap “Play” and start your adventure!
   
   

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WANT TO COMBAT GLOBAL KLEPTOCRACY?

• Share the experience with family and friends
• Place the experience in your city on the interactive map in the app
• Spread the word by pinning this poster at a laundromat or bulletin board near you
• Learn more at the HRF Combating Kleptocracy programs on their website and social platforms. 

ABOUT THE HRF COMBATING KLEPTOCRACY PROGRAM

HRF Combating Kleptocracy Program shines a light on how corrupt actors around the world use their illicit finances to undermine democracy and strengthen authoritarianism. If there’s one link between every modern dictatorship, it’s corruption. Every authoritarian government relies on illicit finance and trans-national money laundering to hide its wealth and target its enemies. And all too often, the tools these regimes use are found in democracies, which have welcomed their dirty money for years. Launched in 2023, this program reveals how these networks operate and who has benefited the most. Combating Kleptocracy dives into the links between illicit finance and kleptocrats — from shell companies to dictatorial donations, from private enterprise to suspect finance — and explores how to disrupt these networks.

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ABOUT THE CREATOR

Casey Michel oversees the Human Rights Foundation’s Combating Kleptocracy Program, focusing on transnational corruption, illicit finance, and the dirty money that links dictators around the world. He is the author of two books, “American Kleptocracy” and “Foreign Agents,” both published by St. Martin’s Press. Michel has written on kleptocracy and related topics for outlets like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and others. He received his master’s degree Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies from Columbia University, and he’s currently sanctioned by the Russian regime for his work.

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ABOUT STORY CITY 

Story City makes you the hero of your own adventure, giving you the chance to step into a story in locations across the world. Whether it's real-life choose-your-adventures, puzzle trails, or historic tales, each experience only opens when you’re standing in the right place via the Story City App.

Founded in 2015, Story CIty is a social enterprise based in Edmonton, Alberta. We believe every city, every town, every street is full of stories that are worthy of a local and international audience and that there needs to be a platform for those stories to be heard. Whether they are choose your adventures, puzzle trails, indigenous myths or historical tales, the stories are created by local storytellers who know their city best.

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• Available to play on iOS & Android phones
• 75+ Unique Adventures in locations around the world in a single app
• Working with cities, brands and institutions around the world to bring creative adventures to life in their communities
• Launching stories you can place and play anywhere in the world
  
  

Story City creates stories that get people active in their communities, and work with brands, cities, artists and institutions to bring new adventures to life. Story City is committed to activating local creative communities and bringing stories to life that get people active in the real world.

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For Press Inquiries please contact: corinne@hrf.org

For more information about Story City reach out at: marketing@storycity.app

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