A 30-year-old African American woman from Nevada has filed a lawsuit alleging she was misled into becoming a surrogate for a Chinese couple now at the center of a multistate child welfare and fraud investigation involving more than 20 surrogate-born children.
Tronderrica James says she agreed to carry a baby believing she was helping a couple struggling to start a family.
Instead, she claims she was unknowingly drawn into a far-reaching surrogacy operation that concealed the identities of the intended parents and the scale of their involvement in the surrogacy system.
According to reporting by the New York Post, James was first contacted through a Facebook surrogacy group by a woman identifying herself as “Jasmine,” who claimed to be acting on behalf of the intended parents. James says she was told the couple lived in Los Angeles, had one child or none at all, and could not communicate directly due to a language barrier.
Court filings later identified the intended parents as Guojun Xuan, 65, and Silvia Zhang, 38. Authorities allege the couple secretly operated two surrogacy agencies—Mark Surrogacy and Future Spring Surrogacy—which were used to recruit surrogate mothers nationwide while obscuring how many children they already had.
In an August 2025 email included in court records, James expressed anguish and anger over the situation.
“What you did… is foul, reckless and cruel,” she wrote. “Tell me the truth about what happened to the baby I carried — the baby you named Poppy.”
The case came to public attention after police removed 21 children from Xuan and Zhang’s custody in Arcadia, California. Investigators say 15 children under the age of three were found inside the couple’s nine-bedroom home, with additional children located at nearby properties. The removals followed hospital reports involving a two-month-old infant who suffered serious injuries, which authorities later attributed to a nanny.
Xuan and Zhang were arrested last May on suspicion of child abuse and neglect but were later released on bond. As of now, no criminal charges have been filed. Child welfare agencies across several states continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the children and the surrogacy arrangements.
Since the investigation became public, other surrogate mothers have come forward with similar allegations, saying they were unaware of the scope of the couple’s activities until late in their pregnancies or after giving birth. Some surrogates are now seeking custody of the children they carried, while Xuan and Zhang have filed civil lawsuits against surrogates who cut off communication before delivery.
James and her husband are seeking up to $100 million in damages, accusing the couple of fraud, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In court filings, Xuan and Zhang have denied all wrongdoing. Attempts to reach them for comment were unsuccessful.
The case has renewed scrutiny of the largely unregulated surrogacy industry in the United States, raising questions about transparency, informed consent and the protections available to surrogate mothers—particularly women of color—within complex, cross-border reproductive arrangements.
