A new civil complaint has expanded the scope of the “largest-known real estate fraud scheme in Baltimore history” with new defendants and additional allegations tied to dozens of properties in an investment scam that spanned the globe and resulted in millions in damages.
The complaint — which was first reported by The Baltimore Sun — adds alleged co-conspirators Patrick Coxe and Kevin Dunlap to a prior judgment entered against former ABC Capital CEO Jason Walsh. The complaint builds on an existing $5.6 million judgment against Walsh, adding 17 alleged “sham property conveyances” and 44 property renovations that were allegedly paid for but never completed.
The alleged scheme began in 2020 and ran through the middle of 2023. It is believed to have targeted investors in the United States, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. It purported to offer investors access to Baltimore’s distressed housing market, convincing them that they would buy and renovate rowhouses for conversion into rentals.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants instead perpetrated “a coordinated fraud involving fabricated deeds, forged signatures, falsified wire confirmations and the diversion of renovation funds,” according to court filings.
Former Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah and lead plaintiff Serkan Gökmener described the inner workings of the alleged fraud scheme during a press conference on Monday, presenting voice memos, text messages and emails to back up their claims.
Coxe and Dunlap, allegedly at the behest of Walsh, created fake email accounts in the names of real or purported buyers, then gave those addresses to a title company so that they could send requests for authorization. The three men then allegedly logged into the fake accounts to sign documents on behalf of the buyers.
Walsh allegedly instructed the men to make up names and identifying information in order to close transactions. “Make up a name, like a Turkish name, like Omar something, for the buyer,” he said, in one case. On another occasion, he critiqued the men’s “hack job” when forging signatures.
Walsh allegedly told Coxe and Dunlap to use virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask IP addresses so that emails would appear to originate in victims’ home states or countries. At one point, Coxe complained about the practice, saying he was “running out” of email accounts and having trouble getting new phone numbers.
This is not Walsh’s first brush with the legal system. Besides the existing judgment in Baltimore County, the state of Pennsylvania in November imposed a $350,000 penalty against Walsh for breach of a settlement agreement with the state’s attorney general for failure to maintain residential properties, failure to obtain rental licenses and failure to use a professional property manager.
Baltimore is no stranger to large-scale real estate fraud. In October 2025, a New York-based fraud ring bought up more than 700 properties in the city, then defaulted on $100 million in loans, resulting in hundreds of foreclosures that displaced hundreds of tenants in majority Black neighborhoods.
