(LifeSiteNews) — A California couple is suspected of running a surrogacy scam and possible human trafficking ring after police found 15 toddlers — age two months to three years old — in their luxurious Arcadia mansion. All of the children are believed to be genetically linked to the couple but born via surrogates from around the country. 

The Daily Mail called the operation a “baby surrogate-fueled human trafficking ring,” and an ABC news correspondent said the home had been a “baby factory.”  

The couple, Silvia Zhang, 38, and Guojun Xuan, 65, were arrested and charged with felony child endangerment and neglect in May after a hospital informed local authorities that the couple’s two-month-old had sustained a traumatic head injury.   

Video surveillance footage obtained from the home showed one of the couple’s nannies violently shaking and hitting the infant. The nanny suspected of the abuse, 56-year-old Chunmei Li, is still on the loose and being sought by police.  

The story became increasingly complex after police arrived at the couple’s home and discovered the 15 babies and toddlers. Authorities soon determined that most if not all were born to multiple surrogates who had been misled into thinking that they had helped a couple dealing with infertility who desperately wanted a child.   

All of the toddlers plus six more children belonging to the couple, ranging up to age 13, have been placed with the Department of Children and Family Services.  

Investigators also found that Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC, the firm facilitating the third-party births, is registered to Zhang and Xuan.  

While the couple’s motives for producing so many children remains unclear, their story highlights the fact that the lack of regulation in the burgeoning surrogacy industry places kids born through third party reproduction at risk. 

Katie Fell, executive director of the Center of Bioethics and Culture, told KABC that although having dozens of kids through surrogacy isn’t illegal, the situation at the couple’s home “smells of trafficking.” 

“What are the intentions of having that many children at home through these assisted reproductive technologies?” she asked.  

“These clinics, these agencies are not regulated by any governing body,” Fell noted. 

Fell wasn’t the only one to point out how this story serves as an indictment against the surrogacy industry.

“When we say commercial surrogacy is the wild west, we mean it,” SurrogacyConcern declared on X. 

“Some praise California as a ‘well regulated’ surrogacy destination, but this is the reality: 21 babies bought by a couple who abused them & lied to surrogate mothers. Ban it now,” they urged.

When we say commercial surrogacy is the wild west, we mean it.

Some praise California as a “well regulated” surrogacy destination, but this is the reality: 21 babies bought by a couple who abused them & lied to surrogate mothers. Ban it now.

Credit due to our friend @kal_fell. https://t.co/v1GLCocm3k

— SurrogacyConcern (@SurrogConcern) July 17, 2025

“Big Fertility is getting an awful lot of mileage out of you believing that surrogacy is just a woman helping her infertile sister have a baby,” noted author and activist Katy Faust, founder of the global children’s rights organization Them Before Us,

#BigFertility is getting an awful lot of mileage out of you be believing that #Surrogacy is just a woman helping her infertile sister have a baby. https://t.co/7EQaTYheAP

— Katy Faust (@Advo_Katy) July 16, 2025

“It’s horrific, it’s disturbing, it’s damaging emotionally,” Kayla Elliot, one of the surrogate mothers who had been deceived by the couple, told ABC7 of the Arcadia police department’s discovery.

“Surrogacy is a form of human trafficking,” LifeSiteNews’ Jonathon Van Maren explained earlier this year. “The ethical and legal snarls created by our commodification of human life and trafficking in human children have never been more apparent.”