A Chinese couple continues pursuing surrogate births across multiple states even after losing custody of 21 children amid shocking abuse allegations, exposing how America’s lack of federal surrogacy oversight enables exploitation of both children and birth mothers.
Massive Child Removal Exposes Surrogacy Deception
In May 2025, Arcadia police discovered 15 children in the home of Guojun Xuan, 65, and Silvia Zhang, 38, after investigating a 2-month-old’s severe head trauma. Officers located six additional children elsewhere, bringing the total to 21 kids under the couple’s guardianship. The Department of Children and Family Services immediately placed all children in protective custody. The couple owned Mark Surrogacy and Future Spring Surrogacy, agencies registered to their property that systematically deceived birth mothers about the family’s true size.
Surveillance footage captured disturbing evidence of abuse, including severe disciplinary measures and potty-training punishment. The children, ranging from 2 months to 13 years old, appeared uniformly dressed with identical haircuts in what neighbors described as a school-like environment. At least 17 of the 21 children were three years old or younger, nearly all born through surrogacy arrangements that cost the birth mothers their parental rights through deceptive contracts.
Unregulated Industry Enables Cross-State Exploitation
The absence of federal surrogacy oversight created the perfect storm for this exploitation to continue unchecked. While the FBI began investigating the couple’s operations in 2023, America’s patchwork of state-only regulations allowed the pair to simply move their operations across state lines. After losing custody in California, Xuan and Zhang pursued at least five more surrogate births in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, with all resulting babies immediately seized by respective state authorities upon birth.
Bioethics expert Kallie Fell from the Center for Bioethics and Culture warned that surrogacy agencies and clinics operate essentially unregulated, creating an “anything goes” environment. The couple’s agencies recruited surrogates through Facebook, telling them the pair had zero to one children when they actually controlled over twenty. This deception allowed them to exploit vulnerable women seeking to help families while hiding their true industrial-scale operation.
Legal Battles Escalate as Investigation Continues
Rather than retreating after the raid, the couple launched aggressive legal warfare against the very women they deceived. Xuan and Zhang filed lawsuits against surrogates Melissa Epps and Stacy King, demanding custody plus $1 million each—ten times their original contract amounts—for allegedly breaching agreements. The surrogates have countersued and are fighting for custody of the children they carried, with some refusing to hand over babies after learning the truth about the couple’s operation.
Arcadia Police Lieutenant Kollin Cieadlo stated investigators have never seen anything like this case, describing the discipline captured on surveillance as “horrific.” The couple’s nanny, Chunmei Li, 56, remains a fugitive with an active arrest warrant after allegedly shaking the infant whose injuries triggered the investigation. Despite overwhelming evidence, the couple’s lawyers maintain their innocence, claiming abuse allegations are “false and over-sensationalized” while expressing confidence in winning full custody.
Sources:
Surrogacy scandal: 21 children from surrogate mothers taken from Arcadia couple amid investigation
Why there are no federal rules for surrogacy after 21 children were removed from California couple