Trump has been fined for money laundering in the past - 106 times

Last month, the Trump Organization announced something strange: a plan to build an entire town in rural Scotland, with a kitsch design that blends American suburbia with Scottish oil country. The price was $200 million, but where the Trumps will get that cash is a mystery.

It’s the latest in a string of Scottish investments which appear to make little business sense. The Trump Organization has already shelled out hundreds of millions on two golf courses in the country in the last 12 years, and both have performed terribly. The new project would see the US president’s company build 500 houses, plus swaths of commercial and leisure buildings, on the same estate that houses his Aberdeen golf course.

[...]

Since he bought the piece of land in 2006 for $12.6 million in cash, according to the Washington Post (paywall), it has performed terribly: His company says it invested £100 million in building a golf course and club house there—the Post estimates a sum closer to $50 million (£38 million at current rates)—and the course has lost money every year since opening in 2012, racking up total losses of £7.1 million, according to its filings.

[...]

[He also owns] TrumpTurnberry golf course, which he bought in 2014 for a reported £37.5 million in cash. Turnberry has lost nearly £30 million ($39 million) under Trump’s ownership. Trump claims he has spent £200 million fixing up the place; his project manager says it’s more like £140 million (paywall). Turnberry’s financial filings say Trump has loaned the course £112 million.

[...]

Undeterred, the Trumps now plan to expand the Aberdeen course with the massive development announced last month, grandly named the Trump Estate. The Trumps were given permission to build on the site amid much controversy over potential environmental damage, based on a promise that they would spend £1 billion on two golf courses, a luxury hotel and hundreds of homes. They’ve now scaled back the spending to £750 million, of which they say the current development is the second stage—its unclear which parts of the initial plan will be ditched. This second stage depends on them getting local council approval and then actually ponying up the money.

[...]

In 2006, Trump quietly gave up his self-proclaimed mantle of “King of Debt,” and started making all his investments in cash.

[...]

Developers tend to put a small amount of their own cash into projects, with banks funding the rest. This minimizes the developer’s risk and lets them invest more widely. Onlookers have struggled to explain both this new model and Trump’s Scottish projects. In a careful dissection of Trump Turnberry’s finances, the New Yorker’s Adam Davidson calls that investment “a bizarre, confounding move that raises questions about the central nature of his business.”

[...]

So, where are they getting the money from? When the Post asked Eric Trump, who runs the golf side of the Trump business, how they had paid for 14 real estate projects worth $400 million since 2006, he insisted his father had “incredible cash flow and built incredible wealth…he didn’t need to think about borrowing for every transaction.”

[...]

Three main theories have arisen, of which two would be irrational business decisions, and the third, potentially unethical.

1. Trump just loves golf.
2. He was “‘mystically’ connected” to projects in Scotland, his mother’s birthplace.
3. He was actually investing someone else’s money; perhaps from Russia.

[...]

Eric Trump allegedly said himself that the Trumps received Russian funds. Golf journalist James Dodson claimed last year that during a 2013 round with Trump’s youngest adult son, he asked how the Trumps were funding their golf investments when no banks had “touched a golf course” since the 2008 recession. According to Dodson, Eric replied: “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia…we’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.” Eric Trump has called Dodson’s anecdote “completely fabricated.”

  Quartz

I bet he does.

In 1998 the US Treasury fined him $477,000 for breaking money-laundering rules at the Trump Taj Mahal casino property, and as Davidson points out in the New Yorker, there’s nothing in Trump’s history to suggest he’s troubled by working with deeply suspicious characters.

The Trump Taj Mahal casino broke anti-money laundering rules 106 times in its first year and a half of operation in the early 1990s, according to the IRS in a 1998 settlement agreement.

It's a bit of forgotten history that's buried in federal records held by an investigative unit of the Treasury Department, records that congressional committees investigating Trump's ties to Russia have obtained access to, CNN has learned.

  CNN

And Mueller. Don't forget Mueller.

In a statement, the Trump Organization said it "has had no involvement with the Taj Mahal, or any other Atlantic City property, for over a decade and has no knowledge of the events referred to in your email."

[...]

According to a dozen anti-money laundering experts, casinos often run into these problems. But getting caught with 106 violations in the casino's opening years is an indicator of a serious problem, they said.

The violations date back to a time when the Taj Mahal was the preferred gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, according to federal investigators who tracked organized crime in New York City. They also occurred at a time when the Taj Mahal casino was short on cash and on the verge of bankruptcy.

They had "no knowledge of the events." Sure.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.