From their homes in Argentina, the pitch investors heard from Fernando Plastino sounded like a winner.

They were asked to pour cash into property thousands of miles away in Baltimore through a fellow countryman living in the U.S. For a fee, Plastino and his companies promised to manage the properties, collect rent and pass on the proceeds.

But when the payments stopped coming, some investors say they eventually realized that they had been misled about the homes’conditions, which made some nearly impossible to rent.

The saga of the Argentines is just the latest example offoreign real estate investors running into substantial problems after grabbing their slice of distressed Baltimore real estate.

In 2022, The Banner documented problems associated withABC Capital, a now-bankruptcompany that marketed more than 1,000 homes to buyers from Hong Kong, Israel and more nations. In 2023, The Banner reported on complaints against a real estatecompany that sold mostly to investors in Turkey.

While these far-flung buyers are left with holes in their bank accounts, communities also suffer when the investments go south, leaving neighborhoods with vacant and dilapidated homes.

The conditions of the homes bought up by Plastino and his companies have also drawn the notice of city officials. Tammy Hawley, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Housing & Community Development, said the agency was “aware of Mr. Plastino and his various shell corporations,” adding, “We have taken court action on several of his properties.”

Several Argentine investors say they were sold on Baltimore by Plastino, a businessman living in Potomac. Directly or through intermediaries, they’ve said in interviews and court papers,he assured them the properties would yield high profit margins thanks to U.S. income, an attractive proposition in a country with more volatile markets.

The buyers say they were connected to Plastino through word of mouth among people they knew in Argentina. He and his wife, a journalist covering the White House for an Argentine media company, bought their Potomac home for $1.2 million in 2020, records show.

Through limited liability corporations such as FPBC LLC, Plastino bought at least 200 homes in the city beginning in 2018, mostly in distressed neighborhoods in East and West Baltimore, property records show. Most were acquired for between $20,000 and $40,000.

Attempts to reach Plastino, his wife and his attorneys were unsuccessful.

In one lawsuit, a defense attorney for Plastino denied any fraud took place and suggested that home rehabilitation efforts had been stymied by circumstancesand headwinds beyond his company’s control.

Faced with problems with Plastino, some investors say they have turned to finding new property management to try to salvage their original investments.

Yehuda Blasenstein, a Baltimore property manager, is working with a group of former Plastino investors to get 40 properties into shape for rent. “But not every owner can afford to invest additional funds after getting screwed,” Blasenstein said.

Candela Salvador, a Buenos Aires resident whose mother-in-law invested in the Baltimore properties, said her family is among those not sure what to do next.

“We’re at the point where we think all of the investment will be lost,” Salvador said in an interview.

Under the terms of the agreements, Plastino was responsible for finding tenants, collecting rent and ensuring the homes were well-maintained and rented, according to attorney Brett M. Dieck, who represents several outside investors.

One client says he was told that his property in the 2500 block of Edmondson Avenue in West Baltimore no longer had a tenant, and therefore there were no rent payments to pass on. The investor decided to come to the U.S. and visit the Baltimore home, Dieck said.

But when one of Plastino’s employees took him there, he told the investor that they couldn’t go inside because the home was occupied by a tenant. Later, the investor learned the truth: The home was uninhabited and repairs hadn’t been finished, Dieck said.

The investor says the home is not even connected to water service, which could now cost him $18,000 to fix, according to one estimate he received.

The same investor told his attorney he isn’t ready to give up, despite paying tens of thousands of dollars for repairs he alleges never happened. Thanks to new spending, his home on Westwood Avenue is now freshly painted, has a new porch and is surrounded by a new fence, while the Edmondson Avenue home is also in improved condition, according to Dieck.

Another investor, doing business here as Real Estate Century Corp., alleges in court papers that Plastino’s FPBC LLC was paid about $5 million for real estate services, including acquiring properties that would be rented as multifamily apartment buildings. The properties included a building in the 300 block of North Paca Street on the west side of downtown; its investor says they were told it would have 11 units.

Real Estate Century Corp. said in court papers that Plastino repeatedly gave “personal promises and plea that the work is almost complete and that he needs just a little more time,” but he “did not have the ability and/or skill required to deliver the quality of the product he was promising.”

The listed owner of Real Estate Century declined to comment. Plastino’s lawyers said in court papers that the investment company was wrongly accusing him of fraud. Instead, they argued that the investors and Plastino had a loosely defined business arrangement that was always at the mercy of utility companies and city agencies that control the home rehabilitation process.

In recent years, many of the companies where the Argentines invested have removed Plastino as their official point of contact. Still dozens of properties remain owned by Plastino’s FPBC LLC.

Blasenstein, the property manager newly retained by some ex-Plastino investors, described the work performed by Plastino’s team as “pretty decent” but also problematic because the jobs lacked appropriate city permits. He also said he saw evidence of efforts to squeeze too many tenants into homes without licenses by adding walls and doors.

It’s a story Blasenstein said he’s seen across the city as outside investors encounter problems to make a buck in Baltimore real estate with local partners.

“It’s the same story over and over again,” he said, “with little differences.”