CA - California couple accused of tricking women into carrying babies through surrogacy; 21 children seized, warrants 9 May 2025

[flowershop]

I am interested in what conclusions everyone has drawn from this. I don't think Guojan wanted to sell the children. An argument is made in the article by someone that says that G&S paid for all medical expenses plus the surrogate payments. About 150K per child.

It seems to me he just wanted a lot of kids and had the financial means to acquire them. He was biological father to over 20 kids in that house.

JMO

 

[Orbweaver]

I am interested in what conclusions everyone has drawn from this. I don't think Guojan wanted to sell the children. An argument is made in the article by someone that says that G&S paid for all medical expenses plus the surrogate payments. About 150K per child.

It seems to me he just wanted a lot of kids and had the financial means to acquire them. He was biological father to over 20 kids in that house.

JMO

I’m trying to figure that out too and am super interested in what you all think. My immediate thought is like a modern version of Georgian Tan style human trafficking but the expenses don’t make sense. I hope there is some form of journal that might give insight into their motivations.

 

[sunspun]

I am interested in what conclusions everyone has drawn from this. I don't think Guojan wanted to sell the children. An argument is made in the article by someone that says that G&S paid for all medical expenses plus the surrogate payments. About 150K per child.

It seems to me he just wanted a lot of kids and had the financial means to acquire them. He was biological father to over 20 kids in that house.

JMO

It doesn't sound from the article that Guojan was highly intelligent (despite having managed to accumulate apparently a good size personal net worth), and he seems to have had, if not violent, at least an irascible personality/temper when he was under the influence of alcohol, and since he was, imo, an alcoholic, this would have been frequently.

I think I agree with you that his reasons for paying for surrogacy so many times was the simple wish to "propagate his seed." As others have mentioned, consider multi-billionaire Elon Musk's propensity for the same.

I thought it was interesting that he preferred non-Asian mothers for his children, once he was able to choose since he was paying, if I understood that article correctly.

 

[Lilibet]

I am interested in what conclusions everyone has drawn from this. I don't think Guojan wanted to sell the children. An argument is made in the article by someone that says that G&S paid for all medical expenses plus the surrogate payments. About 150K per child.

It seems to me he just wanted a lot of kids and had the financial means to acquire them. He was biological father to over 20 kids in that house.

JMO

BBM

Alysa Liu won two gold medals in figure skating at the Olympics this year and she and her four siblings all have anonymous surrogate mothers and were raised by their Chinese single father and his mother in Richmond CA. However, it doesn’t seem like a “hoarding” situation as it does appear to be with the family this thread is about. But it’s also not a one-off situation. As this article from NPR indicates, it’s not unusual for Chinese to build families in the U.S. using surrogates (which is illegal in China).

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/04/21/305514689/made-in-the-u-s-a-childless-chinese-turn-to-american-surrogates

Taken to extremes, there are extremely wealthy (“billionaire”) Chinese singles and couples creating very large families via surrogates, as a quick Google search will show.

For the curious, here is the information on Alysa Liu’s family. The whole article is fascinating.

Alysa Liu Won Gold With Her Dad, 4 Siblings Cheering in the Crowd: All About Arthur Liu

The Olympic figure skater's father has been a driving force in her career since she began skating at 5 years old.

www.today.com

Arthur Liu Is the Single Father of 5 Children Born to Surrogate Mothers​

Arthur Liu intentionally built his family as a single father and had five children, including triplets, through a pair of surrogates, according to NBC Sports. The children were born using his sperm and anonymous egg donors.

“I had always wanted to have kids and I was already 40,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019.

Alysa Liu's younger siblings include triplets Justin, Julia and Joshua, and her sister, Selina. Alysa Liu told figure skating outlet A Divine Sport in 2025 that Selina is two years younger than her and the triplets, four years.

Alysa Liu learned the details of her birth when she was 8 years old. Her father told NBC Sports she started asking, "Why do I look different? Why don’t I look Chinese?” She had actually met the surrogate who gave birth to her without knowing about their connection.

“Alysa and a friend had almost figured it out on their own,” Arthur Liu told NBC Sports. “So she wasn’t surprised when I told her.”

Arthur Liu said he enlisted the help of his mother, Shu, who moved to California from China for eight years to help raise the children before returning to China in 2016. He also had a friend help out as Alysa's career took off and he was frequently at skating rinks.