In Taicang City, Jiangsu Province, a villa was reported on October 8th to have an underground surrogacy operation room claiming to be the “largest in the eastern region of China”. The informant stated that this place performs hundreds of surgeries every month, and each of the two doctors responsible for egg retrieval and embryo transplantation earns a monthly salary of approximately 250,000 RMB.
Volunteer against human trafficking, Shang Guanzheng, posted on Weibo on October 8th, revealing that after nearly four months of undercover work, he discovered a surgery room and embryo laboratory in a villa in Lu Du, Taicang, which undertakes egg retrieval and embryo transplantation business for surrogacy institutions in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. The institution internally refers to itself as the “largest underground surrogacy surgery room in the eastern region”.
According to his account, operations at the site start early in the morning around 5 o’clock and are completed before 8 o’clock. The doctors responsible for egg retrieval and transplantation are a man and a woman, each earning around 250,000 RMB per month.
During the surgeries, there are people and vehicles keeping watch outside the villa. The windows of the pickup vehicles are specially treated, and those undergoing surgery must undergo a body search before boarding, and are not allowed to carry electronic devices. The villa also has multiple rear exits for escaping in case of being detected.
Doctors, anesthetists, and administrative staff disguise themselves as janitors when entering and leaving, using false surnames internally. Staff use work phones registered under others’ identities, and do not bring personal phones to work. One of the doctors responsible for surgery is said to be from a top-tier hospital in Shanghai.
Shang Guanzheng mentioned that the surgery room was originally located in Wujiang, Suzhou, and was subsequently moved to Taicang after being tracked. It has been operational for over a year. Surrogate women and egg donors are arranged to stay in 15 hotels in Shanghai, and are then transported to the surgery location by dedicated drivers.
He also stated that management personnel of the institution once claimed that they were “not afraid of being reported locally”, and required employees to monitor his social media updates daily, even incorporating this requirement into internal assessments. Internal staff also mentioned that the institution has surgery rooms and laboratories in multiple provincial capitals and vice-provincial cities, with doctors and management teams rotating between them.
The Taicang Municipal Health Commission issued a notice on the day of the incident, referring to it as an “online report”, and stated that they were conducting on-site inspections in conjunction with public security and other departments, without disclosing the inspection results.
Shang Guanzheng questioned the use of the term “online report” to describe the source of the information. He mentioned that he had already contacted the police at 7:22 a.m. that day, and only posted online at around 8:20 a.m. The police claimed to have simultaneously notified the health department, but according to his account, the first batch of health supervisors did not arrive until around 9:02 a.m., approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes after the report was made.
He further mentioned that when the health supervisors arrived at the scene, there was only one staff member left inside the villa. He later posted on Weibo that when local police officials arrived, they did not verify key individuals but instead prevented him from taking photographs on-site.
The related information has sparked skepticism among netizens. Some comments questioned, “How is it possible to conduct illegal business, especially such a massive one, without official involvement?” Another netizen claimed that similar underground institutions exist in places like Wujiang and Kunshan, and the situation is not a secret among practitioners in maternity centers; “it’s just that the authorities are unwilling to intervene.”