The Journey Update: The D.A. Brings Charges

Three weeks after we released “The Journey,” Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang were arrested, and local prosecutors charged them in a child-abuse case. The F. B. I. is now looking into the couple, and new details have emerged about what happened inside their mansion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Mic check. One, two. Microphone. One, two, one, two.

• 0:07Madeleine Baran?

  Last week, on the morning of October 6, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office held a press conference downtown. The room was filled with local news reporters. Just after 11:00 a.m., a man in a gray suit and striped tie walked up to the podium.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Good morning. My name is Nathan Hockman. I'm the District Attorney of Los Angeles County. We're going to be talking today about an unprecedented case of child abuse that occurred in Arcadia, in which very serious felony charges have been filed today.

• 0:43Madeleine Baran?

  I've been reporting on Sylvia Jong and Guo Jun Shuen, the enigmatic couple at the center of a nationwide surrogacy scandal for over a year now. And one question has come up again and again.

• 0:56Speaker 03

  Are they still pursuing the criminal charges, the Arcadia PD, if they filed?

• 1:01Speaker 04

  What about like the child abuse and all of that, where they found guilty and all of that?

• 1:05Speaker 05

  I want to know, is Sylvia going to go, you know, is she going to go to jail for any of this?

• 1:11Madeleine Baran?

  Just three weeks after we released this podcast series, which included previously unreported details about the case, police arrested Sylvia and Guo Jun, and they charged them with multiple felony counts related to the abuse of their many children.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  This house could only be described as a house of horrors for these young, incredibly young children that had been brought to this house through this surrogacy process.

• 1:43Madeleine Baran?

  Not only is the couple now facing criminal charges in L.A., the feds are involved, too. The morning of the arrest, the FBI took part in a search of the couple's mansion. From In the Dark and The New Yorker, I'm Ava Kaufman. In this bonus episode of The Journey, I'll tell you about the new criminal case, as well as some surprising things law enforcement found inside the house. And I'll tell you what I've learned about the FBI investigation.

• 2:22Madeleine Baran?

  Before he described the charges, the L.A. County District Attorney, Nathan Hockman, gave the audience a warning.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  The information that we are going to be talking about, and again, we're going to be talking about what has been publicly filed in the complaint today, is incredibly disturbing.

• 2:40Madeleine Baran?

  The couple, he said, was being charged with multiple felonies, including conspiracy to commit child abuse. That conspiracy charge cited the couple's decision to recruit surrogates under false pretenses. It also cited the couple's installation of more than 30 motion-activated cameras, which had captured nannies spanking, slapping, and hitting children in rooms throughout the mansion. Then, Hockman described a room I hadn't heard about before.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  One of the rooms in the residence was not equipped with a camera. And one or more of these charged co-conspirator nannies was captured on surveillance carrying these children into that room, where the children could then be heard screaming from inside.

• 3:29Madeleine Baran?

  In my reporting, I'd learned that Guo Jun was sometimes directly involved in the abuse. But what the DA described was far more detailed and, as he'd warned us, difficult to listen to. In one incident, the surveillance footage showed Guo Jun entering one of the classrooms and allegedly telling the nanny to hit one of his children harder. And then the DA said...

• 3:51Speaker 02

  He joined in the physical punishment, repeatedly striking the child's bare buttocks and delivering open-handed blows to the child's head. This defendant, Shuen, also lifted the child into the ear by one arm while continuing to strike him and repeatedly struck the child's head from side to side with sufficient force that the child's body lurched in alternating directions with the blows.

• 4:22Madeleine Baran?

  The footage that Hockman was describing had been seized by police more than a year ago. That was in May of 2025, when police had shown up at the house after the couple's two-month-old baby had ended up in the hospital with severe head injuries. Hockman now told us something else, something new about what had happened last year. Right before police arrived, the cameras had captured Sylvia and Guo Jun allegedly instructing their children to deny they'd been beaten. Sylvia had even told a nanny to hide the evidence of the beatings.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  As the detectives were actually approaching the residence on May 7, 2025, defendant Jong warned one of the nannies that someone was coming and instructed her not to discuss the beatings and to put away the sticks that were used to strike the children. Following that instruction, that nanny went ahead and gathered up the sticks and concealed them inside of a drawer.

• 5:23Madeleine Baran?

  As I listened to the press conference, I kept thinking about the fact that all the incidents the DA was describing had taken place over a year ago. Back when police first obtained this footage, they'd arrested Sylvia and Guo Jun, held them in jail for four days, and then released them. Social workers had removed all the kids from the house, but the parents hadn't been charged. I raised my hand to ask a question about this.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Right here.

• 5:50Speaker 06

  Mr. Hockman, Ava Kaufman with The New Yorker's In the Dark was wondering if you could explain why it took so long to charge the parents after the initial arrest in May 2025, when most of this evidence had been on video?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  So again, with respect to putting together a case like this, and I invite you to look at the criminal complaint that has been filed, we do it methodically because we need to review everything from video to witness statements.

• 6:17Madeleine Baran?

  The DA went on to say it took a long time because it was a complicated case. His office wanted to be methodical. They had to deal with different languages. It wasn't the most illuminating answer.

• 6:34Madeleine Baran?

  A source with knowledge of the situation later told me that our reporting and the public scrutiny that followed played a role in the county's decision to charge the parents.

• 6:59Madeleine Baran?

  After the press conference, I drove to the courthouse in Pasadena for the arraignment, where the couple was going to make their first appearance in the criminal case. I was seated in the jury box along with a bunch of broadcast media and the courtroom sketch artist.

• 7:14Speaker 07

  The tour of Department D is back in session. Okay, this is case 2600918.

• 7:23Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia entered the courtroom wearing an oversized white t-shirt and black pants. She looked a little exhausted, but otherwise the same. Guo Jun, however, was completely transformed. When I'd last tried to speak with him, in the spring, he'd been energetically strolling around a parking lot wearing business clothes, his head full of black hair. Now, he was in a wheelchair and bald. According to his lawyer, Guo Jun was being treated for a rare form of leukemia and had just received a bone marrow transplant. A medical port stuck out from his chest, its catheters dangling. Both defendants pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations Hockman had outlined that morning. Then the court turned its attention

• 8:07Madeleine Baran?

  to the question of bail. The prosecutor, Mackenzie Timori, had filed a motion asking the judge to set bail at $100 million for each defendant.

• 8:20Speaker 05

  I understand that that is an extraordinarily high request, but this is an extraordinary case. A reasonably attainable amount does not have to be easily attainable or convenient, but reasonably attainable.

• 8:32Madeleine Baran?

  Timori explained why the prosecution believed the couple could reasonably attain such an extraordinary sum. She said the couple had many, many bank accounts.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  About 200 bank accounts that they control and have assets in, 70 corporate bank accounts.

• 8:47Madeleine Baran?

  And that those bank accounts had a remarkable amount of money transferred between them the past few years.

• 8:53Speaker 05

  Approximately $250 million.

• 8:56Madeleine Baran?

  $250 million. I'd known that Guo Jun was wealthy. A former real estate employee had told us that he'd purchased million-dollar properties in cash. But moving a quarter of a billion dollars around? That surprised me. Timori then shared some additional details about what had happened after that morning's arrest. She said law enforcement was currently searching the couple's mansion. And already, they'd found millions of dollars' worth of assets, including antique sculptures and expensive bottles of alcohol. There were crates and crates of Maotai, the pungent Chinese liquor that Guo Jun's former employees told me he liked to drink.

• 9:40Madeleine Baran?

  Authorities had also found multiple passports. Guo Jun had one U.S. passport in his office, another U.S. passport in a safe downstairs. He also had a Chinese passport and a Mexican one.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  A Mexican passport, which as of yet I have not been able to determine whether it is fraudulent or not.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  But I do know that they have used fake passports to open up bank accounts.

• 10:04Madeleine Baran?

  She was also concerned that the passports could be used to help the couple flee the country. That flight risk was another reason she wanted to set the bail at $100 million. And she asked the judge for something else, a protective order, so that the couple could not contact or intimidate the children, who were now victims and witnesses in the criminal case. Since their kids were placed in foster care last year, Sylvia and Guo Jun have been allowed supervised visits. And Tamori gave an example of how, on one of those visits, Sylvia had tried to coach them.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  And I will add, Your Honor, in speaking with dependency and DCFS individuals, there was also an occasion where Ms. Wong was meeting with the child and reading of the child with a DCFS monitor in the room. And she had written in the book so that the child could see it, but the DCFS monitor could not. Tell them you're happy with me, something to the effect of, tell them you want to come home with me. Time and time again, these defendants are attempting to get away with this, Your Honor. And I will also note that my-

• 11:13Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia's defense attorney wasn't at the arraignment, but Guo Jun's was, and he represented both parents that day. His name was Mitchell Krems. And if that sounds familiar, that's because he's the same lawyer Guo Jun used for the child welfare case in the juvenile dependency court. That was the case we told you about in episode five, where the judge decided that neither parent would get to reunify with their children. Mitchell Krems was now arguing that setting the bail at $100 million for each defendant was, quote, absurd. He pointed out that Guo Jun, stuck in a wheelchair, was gravely ill.

• 11:50Speaker 05

  If he's not tended to properly, and if he is confined, he could possibly die, Your Honor. So we are asking at this time for the bail to be set at a reasonable amount, which would be $5 million for each defendant.

• 12:02Madeleine Baran?

  After some back and forth, the judge made his decision.

• 12:05Speaker 07

  So I'm going to set the bail at $20 million for each defendant with following non-financial conditions.

• 12:12Madeleine Baran?

  That's $20 million for each defendant, with the added conditions that they surrender all of their passports, wear electronic monitoring devices, and only leave their home for court or medical emergencies. And he issued a protective order prohibiting any contact with the children.

• 12:32Madeleine Baran?

  Right after the arraignment, Mitchell Krems held an impromptu press conference outside the courthouse. It was 100 degrees that afternoon, but if he was sweating beneath his powder blue suit, he didn't show it. Okay, who would like to start? Krems told us Sylvia and Guo Jun were being targeted because of their background.

• 12:51Speaker 05

  My client, Mr. Wong and Sylvia, are being treated unfairly because they're immigrants, because they're Chinese. They came to this country from a communist country to be able to have, to exercise the liberties to have as many children as they want. If they were white, if they were Elon Musk and they weren't Chinese, they wouldn't experience this level of scrutiny. So-

• 13:12Madeleine Baran?

  He reiterated to the crowd what he'd previously told me, that the child abuse was all the nanny's fault, and that the parents had fired any nannies who'd acted inappropriately.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  Any more questions?

• 13:22Madeleine Baran?

  I had one.

• 13:23Speaker 06

  What is the FBI investigating?

• 13:25Speaker 05

  I can't comment on that at this time.

• 13:27Speaker 06

  Have they been giving you any information about the investigations?

• 13:29Speaker 05

  I can't comment on that at this time.

• 13:33Madeleine Baran?

  The FBI spokesperson, I later asked, said the same thing. But in the course of my reporting, I've learned some things about what the FBI may be looking into. More on that after the break.

• 14:13Madeleine Baran?

  You might remember how, when all this started last year, the FBI was investigating Sylvia and Guo Jun. The Bureau refused to comment on the case, but Arcadia Police confirmed that their detectives are working with the FBI. They'd interviewed the couple's surrogates and even some of their former employees. And back then, they were looking into the possibility of child trafficking. But as far as I could tell, there was no evidence the couple was selling their children. And the FBI no longer seemed to be pursuing this line of inquiry. But I've heard there are other reasons the FBI is scrutinizing the couple. First of all, remember that office building owned by Guo Jun's LLCs? The one where authorities discovered an illicit casino,

• 14:55Madeleine Baran?

  narcotics, and hundreds of pounds of psychedelic mushrooms?

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Illegal drugs, firearms, and gambling. It was all allegedly happening at a property managed by the man at the center of the surrogacy scandal that-

• 15:07Madeleine Baran?

  I told you in episode two about how the city of Valmonte filed a lawsuit against Guo Jun and his business associates. That suit is still pending, but former Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Defense officials told me that what was going on at Guo Jun's building might raise bigger questions about Guo Jun's potential ties to money laundering. I should say that an attorney for Guo Jun previously told me his client has never engaged in any illicit financial transactions. There could be another reason that the federal government might be looking into Guo Jun. That has to do with the FBI's investigations into influence operations carried out by the Chinese Communist Party,

• 15:48Madeleine Baran?

  or CCP. Since 2020, the Justice Department has charged at least six people in Southern California with acting or conspiring to act as illegal agents of the Chinese government. Earlier this year, as part of its investigations, the FBI conducted a series of raids in LA County. I don't have any evidence connecting Guo Jun to these investigations, but I have discovered links between him and one of the key figures in these cases. It's worth taking a moment to explain.

• 16:25Madeleine Baran?

  Back in China, you might recall, Guo Jun was named a deputy to the People's Congress for Xinjiang. The role is kind of equivalent to that of a state representative in the US, and he served a five-year term. After immigrating here, Guo Jun became something of a well-known figure in the Chinese-American business community. In 2018, he founded a group called the US Xinjiang General Chamber of Commerce and named himself the president.

• 16:56Madeleine Baran?

  There are many so-called friendship associations like these, especially across the San Gabriel Valley in LA County, which is home to a large Chinese and Chinese-American population. Wealthy businesspeople like Guo Jun use these civic groups to hobnob with local politicians and keep up ties to Beijing. A lot of this is just run-of-the-mill networking. But there's also extensive research showing that the Chinese government sometimes uses such groups to directly advance CCP interests. Several of the people investigated by the FBI had ties to US-China friendship associations. That included someone Guo Jun was connected

• 17:37Madeleine Baran?

  to. Her name is Eileen Wong, and she was serving as the mayor of Arcadia.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  This is a story out of a movie.

• 17:47Speaker 05

  The mayor of Arcadia is stepping down tonight after pleading guilty to charges accusing her of working as an agent for China.

• 17:56Speaker 06

  Wang could face up to 10 years in prison. Her lawyers say she is sorry for the mistakes she's made.

• 18:04Madeleine Baran?

  According to the plea agreement, Wong had taken direction from Chinese government officials to post propaganda on a news website. In one instance, an official had instructed her to post an article denying that human rights abuses were being committed against the Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang. That's the same region where Guo Jun lived and worked in local politics. Guo Jun had been a top donor to Eileen Wong's city council campaign, and I found several photos of them together online. In one of these pictures, at the city councilwoman's victory party, they're seated close together. Wong's cup is filled with red wine. In front of Guo Jun are two bottles of Maotai.

• 18:56Madeleine Baran?

  That's from a video we found of Guo Jun speaking at an event for a friendship organization Eileen Wong founded.

• 19:08Madeleine Baran?

  In Mandarin, Guo Jun is praising Wong, describing her as the Chinese people's pride and role model.

• 19:18Madeleine Baran?

  Despite that relationship with Eileen Wong, Guo Jun's lawyer, Mitchell Krems, told me his client does not have ties to the CCP. He added, quote, "I would be surprised if there was any evidence to support this contention." We'll see what comes of all this. But for now, in addition to looking into Guo Jun's parenting and charging him with child abuse, authorities are also looking into Guo Jun's business dealings, which could mean maybe we'll finally get answers as to where all his money might be coming from.

• 19:57Madeleine Baran?

  After the break, how the surrogates feel about these dramatic developments.

• 20:17Madeleine Baran?

  When Sylvia and Guo Jun were arrested last week, many of the surrogates had already heard the news before I had the chance to call them. By midday, the story was everywhere. Now at noon, an Arcadia couple is in custody. It was actually a little surprising, just how many outlets had picked it up.

• 20:35Speaker 05

  9岁的Silvia Zhang和她65岁的丈夫Guo Jun.

• 20:41Madeleine Baran?

  Some of the surrogates had watched the livestream of the DA's press conference. Others learned about it after the fact.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  You have no idea, Eva. Like, when I heard, because I didn't even hear this until a friend texted me. She's like, "Oh, my God, you saw the news today?" I was like, "What the heck?" And all I can think of, and I was so mad at myself.

• 21:00Madeleine Baran?

  That's Maria Castellanos. You haven't heard from her on this podcast before, though we've been in touch for the past year. I first met Maria in September 2025, and she hadn't been ready to speak publicly at the time. But recently, she changed her mind. As far as I could tell, Maria was the couple's third surrogate. She'd actually done two journeys with Sylvia: giving birth to a boy, and then, less than two years later, a girl. Maria told me she kept thinking about how long all this had gone on for, and how for years, the couple had been allowed to keep bringing more and more children into their home.

• 21:39Speaker 05

  And that's where it's frustrating, because if, you know, the lawyer's getting paid by Sylvia and Guo Yan, then the clinic's are getting paid by them, and then everybody else is getting paid by them. So they just looked the other way, and that was it?

• 21:52Madeleine Baran?

  Maria told me she'd listened to the fifth episode of this podcast, the one where we revealed how many tips police and social workers had gotten about the family over the years.

• 22:02Speaker 05

  I mean, the kids, they don't have any justice. Like, they don't, nobody helped them. You know what I mean? And I was like, oh, you know, they kind of, whatever they saw, you know, this could have been prevented. And it's just, everybody involved, you know?

• 22:16Madeleine Baran?

  Maria kept saying, "This could have been prevented." If social workers and law enforcement had made different decisions, would the couple have had as many children? Would the surrogates have been sued by the couple? And how would things have been different for the children?

• 22:33Madeleine Baran?

  Maria couldn't stop wondering what else the two kids she'd carried had experienced in that house.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  I could just imagine what they were going through, and this is just what they saw in evidence. Could you see, could you imagine, like, how they went bed to bed? Like, were you, like, the stupidest, smallest thing, like, were they read a book every night? Were they given hugs? Were they given words of affirmation, as little kids should be? You know, it's like the best freaking years of your life, where these kids grow up and see, and they want to be like you, and they, you know, mom and dad for whatever it is. And it's like, I thought that's what I was helping Sylvia with.

• 23:20Madeleine Baran?

  Yesterday, the couple was scheduled to appear at a bail hearing, and Maria decided to attend.

• 23:27Madeleine Baran?

  It would be the first time she'd seen Sylvia since 2024, when Maria had given birth to the second child she carried for the couple.

• 23:38Madeleine Baran?

  Guo Jun didn't end up coming to court. He'd had a medical emergency that morning.

• 23:45Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia was there, and Maria wondered if Sylvia would recognize her. But she wasn't entirely surprised when Sylvia didn't seem to notice.

• 23:57Madeleine Baran?

  Ultimately, the hearing was postponed until this Friday.

• 24:03Madeleine Baran?

  As of this writing, the couple remains in custody.

• 24:33Madeleine Baran?

  The Journey is written and produced by me, Eva Kaufman, senior producer Natalie Jablonski, and producer Raymond Tungakar. Samara Freemark is the managing producer for the series. It's edited by Alison McAdam. Additional editing by Willing Davidson and Madeline Barron. Theme and original music by Alex Weston.

• 24:56Madeleine Baran?

  Additional music by Chris Julin and Alison Leighton Brown.

• 25:01Madeleine Baran?

  This episode was mixed by Corey Schreppel. Our art is by Vartika Sharma. Art direction by Aviva Miklov and Ben Kothi. Fact-checking by Inwo Shu. Additional reporting by Zima Lee. Legal review by Fabio Bertoni and Ben Murray. Our managing editor is Julia Rothschild. The editor of The New Yorker is David Remnick.

• 25:28Madeleine Baran?

  If you have comments or story tips, please send them to the team at [email protected]. And make sure to follow In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:17Speaker 05

  Hi, it's Madeline. If you've enjoyed this series and want to support In the Dark, please subscribe to The New Yorker. Subscribing is the absolute best way to support our show and gives you ad-free access to all of our past episodes and future seasons, too. We're almost done working on our next big story. We can't wait to bring it to you. Subscribe at newyorker.com/dark. And as always, thank you for listening to In the Dark.