Lured by promises of payment and a desire to help other families, surrogates discover they have few protections from practices that cast a "dark shadow" over the industry.


Xu Bo recently posted a photo on social media of about a hundred children sitting in what appears to be a lecture hall. Obtained from social media by CBS News

Lured by an ad on Instagram promising a hefty payout, Andrea, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras living in California, decided to explore becoming a surrogate mother.

After some agencies expressed concerns about her immigration status, she found one that said yes. Before signing the agreement, she asked the firm, San Diego-based Creating Your Dreams Surrogacy, to set up a video introduction call with the young couple seeking to become parents. It was that call, Andrea said, that convinced her to make the complicated decision, as a single mother of two, to carry another couple's child.

"It was an opportunity to provide for my two daughters," she said. CBS News is withholding her full identity due to her immigration status.

But what happened after delivering the baby was beyond anything Andrea imagined possible.

After the birth, in October 2024, an elderly couple — people Andrea had never seen — arrived at the hospital to pick up the newborn.

"When the baby was born and they arrived at the hospital, it was a completely different couple," she said.

Worried about her immigration status and money she still was owed, Andrea handed over the infant and said she was paid about $40,000. The elderly couple took the newborn, and she never saw any of them again.

A broad pattern across the industry
The U.S. is the only developed country where commercial surrogacy is legal. Yet as Andrea and other women interviewed as part of a yearlong CBS News investigation discovered, few, if any, meaningful protections exist for surrogates.

There is no official tally of surrogacy births in the U.S., but those in the field estimate there are up to about 10,000 a year.

Women can enter into agency contracts unaware they may carry children simultaneously with other surrogates for the same intended parents, or carry for foreign nationals who may never enter the country, industry whistleblowers told CBS News.

Those insiders said they were aware of cases in which intended parents hired multiple surrogates in rapid succession. No federal agencies track these births. These whistleblowers, whose identities CBS News are protecting, said they believe the abuses cast a "dark shadow" over the assisted reproduction industry, harming dedicated professionals.

CBS News spoke directly with several surrogates like Andrea who met the intended parents only at delivery — or not at all.

Many foreign nationals travel to California when hiring surrogates. Dean Masserman, a partner at California law firm Vozimer & Masserman Fertility and Family Law Center said, "We have the most favorable laws and geographically, we are the largest state closest to mainland China or Taiwan."

All of the 32 surrogates interviewed by CBS News had their embryos transferred in California, even if they lived in another state.

While California serves as the epicenter for these procedures, efforts across the country to protect surrogates and infants from potential bad actors have largely stalled. Masserman, who worked with a small group of attorneys crafting best legal practices for agreements in California said in the past 15 years things have changed and the law should "be updated and amended to reflect new things that have arisen."

Andrea's account reflects a broader pattern across the industry. Surrogates reported a wide range of compensation, and promises of payment that they say were not met. While agencies and escrow companies processed millions of dollars, the surrogates interviewed by CBS News said they received amounts far below the six-figures often advertised — about $45,000 for single births and under $70,000 for twins. And some reported pressure from agencies and intended parents to implant two embryos.

Mayra Arley Hernandez, 42, carried three babies for two different couples, including twins for the same couple as Andrea. She said she didn't meet them until delivery, and only found out their ages — both turned 61 that year — during the embryo transfer. Andrea had her baby in October 2024, and Hernandez had the twins in December 2024.

"It was weird," Hernandez said in Spanish. "They wanted the process quick, for me to hurry, to go to the appointments, and for everything to be private."

She said she had no idea the couple was working with other surrogates. Hernandez said she would have wanted to know. Documents show the couple intended to implant two embryos in each surrogate they hired.

CBS News reached out to the couple repeatedly for comment and, hearing no response, traveled to their home, a large compound in a remote corner of Wyoming. A caretaker at the house said the family was traveling in Hong Kong and took excellent care of their children.

Hernandez says she was paid $65,000 to carry the twins by Creating Your Dreams. Carla Maeda, CEO of Creating Your Dreams Surrogacy, said in an emailed response to a list of detailed questions from CBS News that she has been in the industry for 15 years and operates at the highest standard.

"I am confident that the situation you described did not occur within our agency," she wrote. "We conduct match calls, introduce all surrogates directly to their intended parents, and ensure they maintain open communication throughout the pregnancy. Additionally, either myself or an agency coordinator is always present during labor and delivery."

"So who do we hand the baby to?"
In a different case that made national headlines in July 2025, an unmarried Arcadia, California, couple who had at least 25 children through surrogates was arrested on charges of child endangerment — generating a burst of news coverage and exposing the little-known world of extreme surrogacy. Police removed 21 children from the home of the couple, Silvia Zhang and Gujuon Xuan, and placed them in California state custody. At least five more children born to surrogates for the couple arrived after the arrest. They are being cared for in other states.

As CBS News began investigating, it became clear this was not an isolated case. This story is based on interviews with current and prospective surrogates and review of hundreds of surrogate contracts and court documents.

Surrogates like Maria Castellanos, who carried two babies for the Arcadia couple, had no idea she was part of a larger group getting pregnant. "I was in shock," Castellanos said, expressing anger at "everybody involved."

"It was a fertility clinic, it was the assistants," she said. "There's no way that nobody knew."

Matched through an online agency, Castellanos agreed to carry a child after Zhang claimed to be a single mother struggling with infertility. When the first child was born, Zhang didn't arrive at the hospital until the following day, prompting nurses to threaten to call Child Protective Services, Castellanos said.

"So who do we hand the baby to?" Castellanos recounted the nurses saying. Because she had signed over her parental rights, she said medical staff initially told her she couldn't even hold the baby while they were waiting for Zhang to show up. She said the nurses eventually let her hold the child — a healthy boy — until they had to take him for tests.

Castellanos agreed to a second pregnancy after Zhang profusely apologized and offered $85,000 — a $20,000 increase from her first birth. Castellanos told CBS News in an interview that Zhang said she "wanted a little girl."

Castellanos said Zhang then told her she wasn't a single mother but had a partner, Gujuon Xuan. According to Castellanos, Zhang said she'd claimed to be single because it made it cheaper to use a surrogacy agency, but she and Xuan were going to open up their own agency to reduce their costs. Castellanos said Zhang promised if she got pregnant for a second time, "It's gonna be completely different because it's going to be one-on-one."

CBS News interviewed 17 of the couple's surrogates and all of them said they didn't know they were building such a large family.

In May 2025, medical staff suspected child abuse when one of the couple's children, a 2-month-old boy, was rushed to the hospital. Two months later, officials removed the remaining children from their mansion. Following the arrests, at least five additional surrogate babies were born in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia, and immediately taken into state custody.

Several surrogates tried to get custody of the babies they delivered. Two surrogates in Virginia initially tried to keep their newborns until Xuan and Zhang filed breach of contract suits against them. Under state laws, surrogates have no inherent parental rights to the child they carried.

Zhang and Xuan deny wrongdoing, stating in court filings that they intended to build a large family. Police say the investigation remains active.

The couple has active contracts for more children. Industry whistleblowers said fertility clinics still had 50 of the couple's unused embryos. CBS News reached out to the fertility clinics, with no response.

Lax laws and scant oversight leave surrogates vulnerable
For years, the rules surrounding surrogacy were focused on protecting the rights of those parents seeking out a surrogate — protecting their parental rights after the surrogate gives birth.

But more recently, it has been the surrogates who have found themselves in untenable situations.

Attorney Melissa Brisman, who has represented both surrogates and intended parents, views these problematic cases as an inevitable result of the lack of legal oversight.

"In most Americans' minds, it's completely unethical [for one set of parents] to have 20 surrogates going at the same time in different states without their knowledge," Brisman said. "But there are no laws governing the number of surrogates intended parents can use."

She said the fact that "a lot of money" is changing hands incentivizes silence.

New York remains the only state requiring that agencies be licensed.

"You could open up an agency with $300 and an LLC certificate in most states," Brisman said.

Most states do not require the parents hiring surrogates to undergo background checks, a standard step in most adoptions.

"It's not a big ask to request a criminal background check from a total stranger asking you to carry their baby," Brisman said.

You could open up an agency with $300 and an LLC certificate in most states.
-Melissa Brisman, surrogacy attorney

A background screening might have flagged the Arcadia couple. In a September 2025 El Monte city court filing, Xuan was accused by the city of being part of a "well-established, sophisticated, and persistent criminal enterprise" as the manager of a property that allegedly allowed illegal gambling and narcotics dealing. Attorneys for Xuan and four other defendants denied all allegations. Zhang faced fraud allegations from an ex-husband; the case was dismissed after two years of litigation in 2023. Police responded to their mansion at least three dozen times in under four years, records show. The calls ranged from noise complaints to reports of thefts and verbal altercations. One caller said they were met with a weapon. No charges were filed in that case.

Background checks face additional hurdles when intended parents are foreign nationals. A federal bill introduced last November aims to bar citizens of specific countries, including China, from using U.S. surrogacy services. An Emory University study found that from 2014 to 2020, just over 41% of international parents using U.S. surrogates were Chinese.

However, industry insiders caution that targeting nationality rather than enhancing overall safeguards "will only drive the practice underground or overseas to places with even weaker protections."

That's a lot of kids at one time"
When a woman CBS News will identify as Judy, to protect her privacy, saw an ad on Instagram advertising surrogacy for $120,000, she signed up to become a surrogate. A single mom of a 7-year-old living with her father, she hoped to make enough money for a place of her own.

"I wanted to build a better life for me and my daughter," Judy said.

After signing her contract with the agency, Patriot Conceptions, she says she was told that the intended parent was a single father looking to expand his family. She said she asked how many surrogates he had hired, and was told the number was significant — close to two dozen.

"I can't be exact, but I know it was a large number and I just kind of sat with that information thinking, 'You know, that's a lot,'" Judy said. "That's a lot of kids at one time."

She said she felt bound by her contract, needed the money, and followed the advice of friends and family who urged her to keep moving forward.

Leaked documents obtained by CBS News named the intended father as Xu Bo. A Chinese billionaire and video game executive, Xu Bo has been reported to have over 100 children through U.S. surrogates, granting them American citizenship at birth. A former partner involved in a custody lawsuit against Xu Bo claims he has as many as 300 children.

Xu Bo disputed these numbers in a statement after the Wall Street Journal published an article in December 2025 on Chinese billionaires having multiple children. The statement says Xu Bo has custody of 12 children born through surrogacy in the U.S.

Xu Bo recently posted a photo on social media of over 100 young children seated in rows. A few days later, he issued a statement in Chinese saying, "Mr. Xu Bo believes in the philosophy that more children bring more blessings, and he wishes for all his words and actions to benefit the long-term development of the Chinese nation."

"The agency should've been very transparent from before getting matched … about who it is that you're having a baby for and what the family is," Judy said in one of the first public comments from a surrogate carrying for Xu Bo.

Judy said she has asked to meet the intended father at least five times, without success.

"It leaves me wondering: do I even have a right to know?" she added.

Xu Bo and his representatives did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Patriot Conceptions also declined an interview. During a brief phone call, a representative asked if the surrogacy records were bought from the dark web and then cut off communications. CBS News obtained the Xu Bo contract through whistleblowers concerned about irregularities in the surrogacy industry.

"I know I'm not the only one"
In 2025, Andrea delivered twins via C-section for a new couple, whom she had contact with throughout the pregnancy. She said they brought her presents. She received $68,000 for the birth.

Initially, Andrea agreed to appear on camera for a CBS News broadcast to speak out about her concerns with the industry.

"I know I'm not the only one," she said. "There must be more."

She said in a phone interview that she wanted to address the demanding workload, the vulnerability of undocumented surrogates and the absence of regulatory oversight.

"I feel it's an issue that isn't very well controlled in the United States, " she said.

However, minutes before the scheduled interview, Andrea canceled. She sent a brief email to explain:

"I can't," she said. "I'm too scared."


Surrogate Maria Castellanos poses with Silvia Zhang after she gave birth to her first child for the couple. The Arcadia-based couple had at least 25 babies via surrogates. Maria Castellanos / Provided to CBS News


Mayra Arley Hernandez carried twins for a couple she says she never met until she gave birth at the hospital. CBS News

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