MANSION HORROR: 21 Kids FOUND

Large pink mansion with tower, palm trees, and garden.

A California mansion harboring 21 children—most born to paid surrogates and unknown to each other—became a crime scene when police discovered surveillance footage of infant abuse that the wealthy owners allegedly ignored.

Story Snapshot

Police discovered 21 children, ages 2 months to 13 years, living with six nannies in a 17,000-square-foot Arcadia mansion owned by Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang
A 2-month-old suffered severe brain and retinal bleeding from alleged nanny abuse captured on the home’s 25-camera surveillance system
Most children were born via paid surrogates who remained unaware of the operation’s massive scale
The FBI launched an interstate trafficking investigation while the nanny accused of abuse fled and remains a fugitive
The couple’s separate El Monte property was raided multiple times for drugs and illegal gambling operations between 2022 and 2025

When Neighbors Mistook a Mansion for a Kindergarten

The beige stone mansion with turrets and balconies in Arcadia’s San Gabriel Valley stood out even in a neighborhood known for wealthy Chinese immigrants. Neighbors heard constant screams and noise, mistaking the residence for an unlicensed kindergarten. Police received over three dozen calls about disturbances and altercations before May 2025. The truth proved far stranger than a daycare violation. Inside, 15 children lived communally with buzzcuts and regimented potty training schedules, while six more stayed with friends. The home resembled a bizarre institutional setting where wealth met dysfunction, staffed by live-in nannies managing what amounted to an assembly line of childhood.

The Infant Injury That Triggered a Federal Case

Silvia Zhang brought a 2-month-old boy to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on May 7, 2025, with catastrophic head injuries. Doctors immediately suspected abuse, identifying brain and retinal bleeding consistent with violent shaking or dropping, not an accidental fall as claimed. Two days later, Arcadia police raided the mansion, arrested Xuan and Zhang for neglect, and discovered the scope of the operation. Nanny Chunmei Li, identified through the home’s extensive surveillance system as the likely abuser, fled before officers could detain her. A warrant remains active. The couple maintained 25 cameras throughout the property but allegedly failed to monitor the footage that captured both this abuse and earlier incidents of emotional and physical mistreatment.

The Surrogacy Pipeline Nobody Questioned

Guojun Xuan, 65, and Silvia Zhang, 38, amassed 22 children in roughly four years after divorcing their previous spouses within 10 days of each other in 2021. Zhang claims to be the biological mother of all 22, though she physically birthed only one or two. The rest arrived via paid surrogates hired across state lines, their embryos transferred in fertility clinics while the surrogates remained unaware they were contributing to what investigators now scrutinize as either an extreme family experiment or something more sinister. California permits compensated gestational surrogacy without federal oversight, creating a regulatory vacuum that enabled this accumulation. The FBI received a tip about the surrogacy operation in 2023, interviewing at least four surrogates and multiple attorneys, yet the couple continued expanding their household.

Real Estate Empire Built on Shadows

Xuan operated as a real estate investor with properties mapped across Los Angeles and Orange County in his office. His holdings included the Arcadia mansion and a separate El Monte property that attracted law enforcement attention for reasons unrelated to children. Between 2022 and 2025, authorities raided the El Monte site multiple times, discovering marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, and illegal gambling operations. These connections deepen suspicions that Xuan’s activities extended beyond questionable parenting into organized criminal enterprise. His lawsuits against surrogates and fertility clinics for unauthorized deliveries suggest a man accustomed to controlling outcomes through litigation and wealth, treating biological production as transactional business.

The Investigation That Refuses Simple Answers

Arcadia Lieutenant Kollin Cieadlo admitted investigators remain uncertain whether they uncovered human trafficking or merely an unconventional large family. Detectives reviewed translated surveillance audio seeking evidence of systematic abuse beyond the nanny’s violent acts. The FBI continues probing interstate surrogacy payments and child transport while LA County Department of Children and Family Services maintains custody of all 21 removed children. Neither Xuan nor Zhang faces charges despite their arrests. Their attorneys in Virginia and California refuse media inquiries. The surrogates face lawsuits from the couple claiming breach of contract, a legal maneuver that transforms victims into defendants and obscures the fundamental question: what precisely was happening in that mansion?

What This Means for Surrogacy’s Future

This case exposes the dangerous gaps created by America’s patchwork approach to reproductive technology. Federal surrogacy regulations do not exist, leaving each state to craft its own rules or none at all. California’s permissive framework enabled Xuan and Zhang to build their operation legally until abuse emerged. The 22 children now face uncertain futures, removed from the only home most have known, their identities tied to a scandal that may reshape how America governs gestational contracts. Fertility clinics and surrogacy attorneys face mounting scrutiny over due diligence failures. The broader Chinese émigré community in Arcadia confronts undeserved stigma. Meanwhile, the nanny remains at large, the parents walk free, and the children enter a foster system ill-equipped for their unique trauma.