A couple was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit child abuse after investigators learned more than 20 children born through surrogates were being housed in the suspects’ Arcadia home.
Guojon Xuan, 65, and his wife, Sylvia Zhang, 38, were arrested by deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Bureau, according to department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida.
A news conference was scheduled for Tuesday morning, at which Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman was expected to discuss the case.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Xuan owned a property in El Monte that was allegedly used as a casino and a pot house where psilocybin mushrooms were grown, drawing law enforcement attention.
The investigation later focused on the Arcadia house after Zhang brought the couple’s 2-month-old son to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where doctors found the infant had a brain bleed.
The nanny charged with assaulting the child by slamming his head against a desk, Chunmei Li, fled to China before police could get her into custody, a law enforcement source told The Times.
After Arcadia police began investigating the case and arrested the couple in May 2025, authorities took custody of 21 children — all born via surrogate and who were under Xuan’s and Zhang’s care.
According to Arcadia police Lt. Kollin Cieadlo, a hospital notified them on May 7, 2025, that a 2-month-old infant had been admitted with a traumatic head injury and brain bleeding.
Detectives responded to a home in the 600 block of West Camino Real, where a search warrant was served, Cieadlo said.
Seized surveillance cameras showed a nanny employed by the infant’s parents violently shaking and hitting the child on May 5, causing the baby to lose consciousness, according to Cieadlo.
“Despite being made aware of the incident, the child’s parents failed to seek timely medical attention,” Cieadlo said in a statement. “The child was not transported to the hospital until two days later, after the onset of seizures.”
On May 9, 2025, arrest warrants were issued for the parents and the nanny, 56-year-old Chunmei Li.
Zhang and Xuan were arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment/neglect, with bail set at $500,000 each, Cieadlo said.
They were subsequently released, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department inmate records.
Li remains at large.
“As a result of the investigation, the (county) Department of Children and Family Services was notified and responded to the residence,” Cieadlo said. “The remaining children in the home were taken into protective custody.”
A total of 15 children ranging in age from 2 months to 13 years old were taken into DCFS custody and six other children had been moved to other homes, but all 21 were confirmed to be the children of Zhang and Xuan, according to a broadcast report that quoted Cieadlo as saying many of the children were born through surrogacy before Zhang and Xuan took legal guardianship of them.
He said the children suffered severe verbal and physical discipline that caused authorities to suspect they were being abused.
A woman who gave birth to one of the children told ABC7 she conceived through IVF before turning the child over to the couple through an agency called Mark Surrogacy. The agency is owned by Zhang and now goes by the name Future Spring Surrogacy, according to news reports and online records.
The surrogate mother said she was told Zhang and Xuan had only one child.
It’s unclear why Zhang and Xuan wanted that many children under their care.