ARCADIA, Calif. — A California couple was arrested early Tuesday on child abuse charges after an investigation into a surrogacy arrangement involving at least 21 children ranging in age from a few months to 13 years, authorities said.
The Short Version
- Tuesday morning arrests — Guojun Xuan, 66, and his wife Silvia Zhang, 39, were taken into custody at their Arcadia home on child abuse charges, according to the Associated Press.
- The charges — Several counts of child abuse, plus conspiracy to commit child abuse, accessory after the fact, and dissuading a witness, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said.
- $100 million bail sought — Prosecutors cited the serious nature of the charges and flight risk; the couple was scheduled to be arraigned at the Pasadena courthouse later Tuesday.
- 21 children — Fifteen were removed from the couple’s Arcadia home last year and six more were located elsewhere. Most were between 1 and 3 years old.
A morning raid in Arcadia
Officers moved on the Arcadia address early Tuesday and detained Xuan and Zhang on multiple charges, according to the New York Post. Local law enforcement and the FBI were at the home after the raid. Hochman announced the charges at a news conference Tuesday morning, and did not mince words.
“This case is unprecedented. It is horrific,” Hochman said. “The physical abuse, beating and punishment that these very young children received is despicable.”
The couple earned their wealth through an extensive real estate business they operated with a group of businessmen based in China, Hochman alleged, according to the New York Post. He said prosecutors would seek $100 million bail for the couple, citing the serious nature of the charges, the couple’s wealth, and the risk that they could flee.
What prosecutors alleged
Hochman said the couple set up a surrogacy agency — identified by the New York Post as Mark Surrogacy — that they operated from their home, and used it to hire surrogates throughout the United States. He alleged the couple paid surrogates up to $135,000 to have children for them, and paid mothers tens of thousands of dollars on multiple occasions.
Fifteen children were removed from the couple’s opulent Arcadia home last year after an allegation of abuse, and another six living elsewhere were also located, according to the AP. They ranged in age from 2 months to 13 years, with most between 1 and 3. Police believe Zhang gave birth to one or two of the children while the rest were carried and delivered by surrogates.
“The house could only be described as a house of horrors for these incredible young children,” Hochman said.
Hochman said the couple set up three rooms they called learning centers, where the children spent several hours a day sitting at desks under the supervision of nannies. Through an extensive surveillance system including motion-activated cameras — more than 30 of them, according to the New York Post — the couple watched as the nannies subjected the children to physical abuse including daily beatings, Hochman said.
In one video, Hochman said, Xuan enters one of the rooms and tells a nanny to strike a child harder, and in another he joins the nanny in hitting the child. The DA also alleged that one nanny often carried children into the only room without cameras, where “the children could then be heard screaming from inside.”
According to the New York Post, the couple also kept a spreadsheet of the children listing their names, dates of birth, and which surrogate each had come from. Hochman said the nannies were told “not to leave any physical marks on the children,” and when police arrived to investigate in May 2025, the couple told the children to deny they had been beaten. Before police arrived, the New York Post said, nannies stripped the children and inspected them for visible marks.
The May 2025 arrests
Zhang and Xuan were first arrested in May 2025 after a hospital said their 2-month-old infant had a traumatic head injury, the result of a nanny at the home violently shaking the baby, according to Arcadia police. Arcadia police did not file charges at the time, saying they needed to complete the investigation. The couple got out on bond as the investigation continued, according to the New York Post.
After examining the surveillance footage, police issued an arrest warrant for Chunmei Li, the nanny seen hurting the 2-month-old infant, but she could not be found, according to the AP. All 21 of the children are in the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to ABC 7, via the New York Post.
Hochman said Tuesday that “there will be a reckoning” for the defendants, and that one of them faces more than 17 years in prison if convicted. When asked about the couple’s motivation, he said that was part of the ongoing investigation, as was the parentage of each child.
Surrogates say they were misled
Investigators have said they were looking into whether the couple had misled surrogates around the country, and that at least eight women came forward to say they were aggressively pursued by the couple to serve as surrogates, according to the AP. The women, many of them first-time surrogates, said they were given misleading or incomplete information about the couple’s family situation and intentions. At least one, Kayla Elliott, is now trying to get custody of a baby she birthed for the couple.
Elliott, a mother of four from Texas, did not know that Xuan and Zhang were expecting more babies with other mothers — and already had 13 children — until she was halfway through her pregnancy, according to the New York Post. She said she met Xuan during the embryo transfer, where he was flanked by two Mark Surrogacy employees, and that after the successful transfer he fastened a jade bracelet on her wrist, which a translator said was a symbol of joining their family. Each surrogate hired for Zhang and Xuan was gifted the same bracelet.
The New York Post said the couple posed as an unmarried couple who were desperate to give their daughter a sibling when recruiting prospective mothers. Each woman, though, believed she was the only person carrying for the couple.
Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman agrees to carry and deliver a child for another person or couple, often after an embryo transfer, according to the AP. There is no comprehensive federal law regulating surrogacy, leaving most rules to the states. California is considered a surrogacy-friendly state because it has clear laws governing the process: both sides are required to have lawyers, and there must be a written, notarized contract before an embryo transfer takes place.
The defense responds
Mitchell Krems, Xuan’s attorney, told KTLA: “My client is innocent. It is the nanny’s wrongdoing who went on the run. He is being targeted for exercising his constitutional right to have a large family.”
Krems previously told ABC 7 that Xuan’s goal was to raise children who become productive adults. “The reason he has all these children is because he wants them to contribute to society. He is not a man who is self-indulgent,” Krems said, according to the AP. “Some who are wealthy might spend on jewelry or cars, but he is actually spending his resources to help his children become educated so that they can be the philosophers, the physicians, the researchers and the inventors that help society.” Krems did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Tuesday’s arrests.
Zhang and Xuan have repeatedly denied accusations that they were selling their children, according to the New York Post. Andrea Cid, a former Mark Surrogacy coordinator, called that notion crazy. “Why would they think it’s trafficking if there was trafficking, the children wouldn’t be there,” she said.
What comes next
The couple was scheduled to be arraigned at the Pasadena courthouse later Tuesday. Prosecutors are seeking $100 million bail. The investigation into the couple’s motivation and the parentage of each child remains open, Hochman said.
The case lands as one of the most serious surrogacy-related criminal cases in California’s recent history — a state whose clear surrogacy statutes made it a national destination for the practice. For more on major criminal cases in the region, see the LAX espionage arrest case and the Caleb Flynn murder case, plus Previously’s crime desk and the news hub.