Police arrested a couple for child felony endangerment after finding more than a dozen children living in the couple’s California mansion, all born from surrogates.
When officers from the Arcadia Police Department arrived at the home of Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, they found 15 toddlers. Later, they discovered that six other children had been moved to other homes.
Though police were initially responding to reports of a baby who had suffered a traumatic head injury, the couple is now suspected of running what the Daily Mail called a “baby surrogate-fueled human trafficking ring.”
Xuan and Zhang have yet to be charged with trafficking, but police say that they are gathering evidence about a scheme that dragged in numerous women across multiple states.
In addition to the child endangerment charges against Xuan and Zhang, police also issued an arrest warrant for the couple’s nanny, Chunmei Li, who allegedly verbally and physically abused the children.
Security footage from inside the house showed Li violently shaking one of the babies, resulting in a brain injury that continues to keep the child hospitalized. Li has yet to be arrested and is being actively pursued by authorities.
While having dozens of children through surrogacy isn’t technically illegal, the executive director of an anti-surrogacy nonprofit told ABC7 that the couple’s crowded home situation “smells of trafficking.”
Zhang has denied the allegations that she and her husband operated a baby smuggling ring, calling the accusations “misguided and wrong.”
Mark Surrogacy, the agency the couple operated, has shuttered, but a Pennsylvania woman told KTLA Los Angeles that she is currently pregnant with a child for the agency.
One of the surrogate mothers, Kayla Elliot, who was hired by the couple, told ABC7 that Xuan and Zhang claimed to be clients of a surrogate agency, Mark Surrogacy, which they actually owned.
“It’s horrific, it’s disturbing, it’s damaging emotionally,” Elliot said of the Arcadia police’s discovery.
Elliot is now trying to regain custody of the baby she bore for Xuan and Zhang. The Department of Children and Family Services took in all 21 of the children who were formerly under the couple’s custody.
California is one of 15 states that allow compensated surrogacy—in which assisted reproductive technology is typically used and the surrogate mother is paid for bearing the child—without conditions. Only one state, Louisiana, totally bans compensated surrogacy.
