Reporter breaks down 'damn weird' Trump plan to build 500 houses around his money-losing Scottish golf course

The Trump Organization is planning to build 500 houses in the area surrounding the Trump International Golf Links in rural Scotland -- and Quartz reporter Max de Haldevang says the transaction is "damn weird."

According to de Haldevang, the Trump Organization will spend an estimated $200 million to build the homes, which will essentially comprise a village outside the president's Scottish golf course.

What makes this particularly strange, he argues, is that this golf course has been a major money loser for the Trump Organization -- but that's not stopping it from using nothing but cash to fund the project.

The Trump Organization roughly a decade ago stopped taking on debt to finance its projects and instead went on a buying spree using cash-only transactions.

The big mystery, as de Haldevang points out, is where all this cash is coming from to spend on money-losing projects. However, he notes that all-cash transactions on this scale are usually a warning light that the money is being laundered for foreign criminal enterprises.

"Britain, and Scotland in particular, are also notorious spots for money-laundering," he writes. "Trump's Florida properties are awash with Russian cash, and he's had business relationships with questionable characters from across the [former Soviet Union]. Given the opacity of Trump's business, there's little more we can do than speculate at what, in any case, is a damn weird project to spend so much money on."

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