When police walked into a sprawling Arcadia mansion over the summer, they expected to check on a single injured child. Instead, they say they found 21 children living inside, all reportedly born to surrogate mothers and all tied to the same California couple. That discovery has since cracked open a high-stakes fight over custody, money, and the outer limits of commercial surrogacy in the United States.
The case centers on 65-year-old Guojun Xuan and 38-year-old Silvia Zhang, who had quietly filled their home with babies and toddlers while neighbors assumed a large extended family was visiting. Now, with the children in state care and more surrogate pregnancies coming to light, the story has shifted from a local abuse probe to a national test of how far the law can stretch to keep up with a booming fertility industry.
The raid that stunned Arcadia
Investigators first arrived at the Arcadia property because of a reported child abuse incident, not a surrogacy tip. According to state records, the initial call involved a young child who was allegedly hurt in the home, which led authorities to open a broader child endangerment investigation into the couple. When officers entered the enormous gated mansion, they found 21 children, most of them infants and toddlers, scattered through bedrooms and common areas that had effectively been turned into a private nursery complex, a scene later described in detail in initial coverage.
City officials in Arcadia later determined that every one of those 21 children had been born through surrogacy arrangements linked to a business operation run by the couple. Local investigators concluded that the kids were the product of a surrogacy enterprise owned by Zhang and Xuan, rather than a traditional family, and that the home functioned as a kind of holding site for babies delivered through these assisted reproductive technologies. That finding, laid out in an Arcadia investigation, is what pushed the case from a single suspected abuse incident into a full-blown probe of a possible surrogacy scam.
Who are Xuan and Zhang, and what were they doing?
On paper, the couple at the center of the storm do not look like typical parents of two dozen small children. All 21 of the kids were confirmed to be the biological children of 65-year-old Guojun Xuan and 38-year-old Silvia Zhang, a pairing that raised eyebrows even before investigators dug into the business side of their operation. Authorities say the pair were arrested earlier in the case on felony child endangerment charges tied to the alleged abuse incident that first drew police to the home, a detail that has been cited in charging records.
From there, the picture only got more complicated. Xuan and Zhang were already on the radar of child welfare officials, who say they were looking into how the children were being cared for and whether the surrogacy arrangements were properly disclosed. Reporting on the case notes that Xuan and Zhang were arrested on felony child endangerment in connection with a possible child abuse incident involving one of the children, a key detail highlighted in an interview with an alleged surrogate victim who described the couple’s conduct in the abuse investigation.
Inside the mansion and the mystery around the babies
Neighbors had long noticed unusual activity at the Arcadia mansion, but few understood what was happening behind the gates. Tucked away inside an enormous property on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, the house was known for a steady stream of nannies, delivery drivers, and visitors, yet residents say they rarely saw the same adults twice. One detailed account described how officers, during the raid, moved through a Los Angeles area mansion and found cribs, baby gear, and children’s belongings filling room after room, a scene captured in follow up reporting.
Video shared publicly later showed law enforcement at the property and emphasized how unusual the setup appeared even to seasoned officers. Police in California raided the home of Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang in Arcadia and seized 21 kids, mostly surrogate-born, a moment that drew national attention once clips circulated on social media. Another video segment described how 21 kids were seized during a police raid on this Los Angeles mansion in July, underscoring that the mystery around the parents, a couple with ties to international surrogacy networks, was only deepening as more details emerged in broadcast footage.
Alleged surrogacy scam and a nanny on the run
Once authorities realized all 21 children were born via surrogates, attention shifted to how those women had been recruited and what they had been promised. Local investigators accused the couple of tricking women into surrogacy, saying some were led to believe they were entering more traditional caregiving or domestic work arrangements before being steered into pregnancy contracts. Officials in Arcadia said 21 children were removed from the home after the couple were accused of deceiving women into becoming surrogate mothers, a claim detailed in a city-focused investigation.
At the same time, a separate thread of the story involved a nanny who reportedly vanished once the case went public. Coverage of the probe described a nanny on the run in an alleged California surrogacy scam, with records hinting that the kids were destined to be sold off and not actually raised in the Arcadia house long term. That allegation, that the children might have been slated for transfer to other adults rather than staying with Xuan and Zhang, surfaced in a televised segment that framed the case as a potential trafficking risk in nanny-focused reporting.
From local raid to national surrogacy reckoning
What began as a local child abuse probe quickly turned into a national conversation about how surrogacy is regulated, or not, in the United States. Officials said 21 children were taken from the couple amid a surrogacy scam investigation, and neighbors described their shock at learning that the babies they saw coming and going were part of a commercial operation rather than a large extended family. One neighbor, Art Romero, recounted how the raid unfolded and how the community learned that 21 children had been taken from the couple amid a surrogacy scam investigation, a detail laid out in regional coverage.
National outlets soon picked up the story, highlighting how the case exposed gaps in oversight for cross border fertility arrangements. One video update framed it as an example of how a California couple investigated for child abuse had 5 more surrogate babies on the way, even after the state had already taken 21 children into custody, a point underscored in a national segment. Another broadcast noted that the story first drew national attention last summer when police in California raided the home, then later revealed that additional surrogate pregnancies tied to the couple were still in progress, as described in a follow up video.
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