Investigation: Exposing the underground world of 'belly rental' for 350-600 million VND

Surrogacy is being exploited by subjects to create an underground world of "renting bellies" for prices ranging from 350 to 600 million VND.

In the morning, Vietnamese people who "rent their bellies" visit a hospital commonly called D.R. Hospital (Cambodia).

Surrogacy for humanitarian purposes is a solution for many infertile couples, permitted by Vietnamese law as well as some other countries in the world .

However, this purpose is being exploited by subjects to create an underground world of "belly rental" with prices ranging from 350 to 600 million VND.

During 2 years of monitoring the activities of many "surrogacy" groups (also known as belly rental, surrogacy) on the internet, a group of Tuoi Tre reporters discovered a transnational "belly rental" ring introduced by its "henchmen" as being run by a Chinese boss.

From "renting bellies", many Vietnamese women in debt and "needing money quickly" soon became brokers and this network increasingly spread everywhere.

Identify the "boss" brokers

Women in an apartment building in Cambodia waiting for examination and embryo implantation

From groups with the criteria "Surrogacy & Egg Donation" on social networks, Leo (real name TTKS, 29 years old, living in the old Binh Duong province) and DT (real name TTD) became famous as experienced "surrogacy" brokers, both working for a Chinese boss commonly known as Andy.

According to Leo, the "belly renter" can choose one of the popular forms such as Thai transplant - Vietnamese nutrition - Thai birth; Chinese transplant - Vietnamese nutrition - Chinese birth; Chinese transplant - Vietnamese nutrition - Chinese birth.

In the surrogacy world, the phrase "implantation - maintenance - birth" is a way of describing the journey of a surrogacy case, which includes three stages: embryo implantation - maintenance - birth, corresponding to the three locations where it is performed.

Leo encourages surrogates to choose the "Cam implant" method (ie, examination and embryo implantation in Cambodia) because it is convenient for travel. All you need is a passport and a bus ticket from Ho Chi Minh City, through Moc Bai border gate ( Tay Ninh ) to Phnom Penh, and Leo's staff will pick you up.

Leo boasted that in his group he was very "lucky", a woman who had just arrived in Cambodia had an embryo implantation appointment. After about 25-30 days of implantation, if there was a fetal heartbeat, she would be able to return to Vietnam for care.

Many people in Leo's group have gone to China to give birth and deliver their babies, and many who returned from giving birth last year have now signed up to go for the second time. "It's a quick way to make money," Leo said.

According to research, in the same network as Leo, there is another broker using Facebook named D. (real name TTD).

This person regularly posts about recruiting surrogates on "surrogacy - egg donation" groups and on his personal page.

Both Leo and D. clearly "listed" the price list, even sending files with both Chinese and Vietnamese translations to those who wanted to participate.

Accordingly, the fee for a "belly for rent" in Thailand ranges from 424 to 524 million VND, if pregnant with twins add 70 million, cesarean section add 30 million VND.

The surrogate mother will receive money according to each pregnancy milestone. After the embryo implantation is successful, she will receive a bonus of 10 million VND. During the pregnancy, the living allowance will be transferred on the 1st of each month, 8 million VND, for 8 months. When giving birth, the highest amount received is 198 million VND.

However, if the pregnant woman is between 35 and 38 years old, these brokers say she will be deducted 30 million VND. If she gives birth prematurely from the 32nd week or earlier, she will be deducted 1,000 USD and will not receive a "red envelope" (lucky money - PV).

D. clearly instructed the process, if going to Thailand for embryo transfer, they would go by air. "There are all the embryos ready, in Thailand there are many embryos that my company can make. If you don't want to nurture yourself, I have an apartment in District 9, currently there are two pregnant women living there," D. added.

Journey of "renting belly"

TTKS (1996, from old Binh Duong), often called Leo - a seasoned broker in the "surrogacy" world

According to Tuoi Tre documents, in November 2023, Leo arranged for a person named HTL (33 years old) to take a train from Quang Nam to Ho Chi Minh City to begin the "belly rental" journey.

This woman does not hide the fact that she is married, has a 4-year-old child and is burdened with a debt of 400 million VND.

"Even though I miss my child, I still decided to go on this trip to change my life," L. affirmed, and continued to explain. "This will help me pay off my debt quickly. If I work hard for a salary, I don't know when I'll be able to pay it all off. Also, it will ease my mind. Being asked to pay off my debt every day is tiring."

On the morning of November 22, 2023, L. arrived at Saigon Station (Nguyen Thong Street, old District 3) and was immediately guided by Leo to T.D. Hotel (old District 5) to stay. At around 5:00 p.m. the same day, Leo arrived at the hotel to instruct L. on how to book a bus ticket to Phnom Penh.

On the other side of Cambodia, there will be a person named TA (this person is in Leo's secret group). Leo said that the people who ask for "surrogacy" are mainly Chinese couples, if there are no problems, they will go to China to give birth to conveniently hand over the child.

In addition to the above case, Leo also continued to connect another woman (born in 1990, from Dong Nai) to go to Ho Chi Minh City to combine "renting her belly" on this trip.

As planned, the next afternoon, the two women boarded a passenger bus to Moc Bai border gate (Tay Ninh) to complete immigration procedures to Cambodia.

After nearly 8 hours of traveling, the two were taken to an apartment on the 33rd floor of an apartment building in Cambodia - where "belly renters" gather.

"The group has about 25 people, divided into two rooms in the apartment. My room has 11 people, some are waiting for the fetal heartbeat, some are watching for beta, watching for the mucous membrane, all kinds of things" - L. filmed and took close-up photos of the room he was in.

The first procedure that the "renter" has to do when entering the "retention camp" is to take a photo of their passport and send it to the general management group. According to L., there are also DT people in this apartment building, although they are different brokers, they have the same boss so the salary is the same.

On the first morning on the other side of the border, L. was taken to a hospital that people here call "D.R." hospital for examination to schedule an embryo transfer.

Here, L. was surprised. "I thought there would be few people, but it was so crowded, I was scared," L. said.

On July 25, 2023, L. sent a photo of a healthy baby about one month old and said it was the son she had "surrogated" for a Chinese couple.

In addition to the remaining salary of nearly 200 million VND, L. received an additional "red envelope" of 5,000 yuan (equivalent to 17.5 million VND). "When I handed the baby over to the hospital, I cried so much. At first, I thought it was just work and had nothing to do with me. But paying off a little debt also made me feel lighter," L. said.

Li (right, Ho Chi Minh City), third surrogate mother - PHOTO: T. THIEN

From "belly renter" to broker

According to research, there are many people who started out as "belly renters" and were soon "recruited" to become brokers. This explains why this network is expanding like an octopus spreading its tentacles everywhere.

Nhu L. boasted that in the 17th week of pregnancy, she made friends with the boss on Zalo and officially became a broker like Leo (the person who led L. into the surrogacy path), with a commission of 1,000 USD (more than 26 million VND) for each person she found. "Finding one person per month is ok," L. said.

This person seemed proud when revealing that the network he was involved in was well organized. Brokers like Leo, D. or L. in Vietnam were just the first step.

In Cambodia, TA (real name VTTA) will be in charge of transportation, Th. will manage the "rent-a-belly" people, and Coca (from the North) will be in charge of visa procedures. At each stage of pregnancy, there will be an accountant to transfer the salary to the surrogate mother, and when it comes to giving birth, there will be nurses and nannies in charge of taking care of the mother and newborn.

HTL (1992, from old Quang Nam) at Saigon Station on the morning of November 22, 2023 to go to Cambodia to rent a belly - Photo: TR. QUYEN

With the ambition to get rich from the "belly rental" brokerage profession, L. quickly calculated for the next journey.

Accordingly, on March 8, 2025, L. took a plane from Quang Nam to Ho Chi Minh City to prepare for his second trip to Cambodia. L. said he was willing to take anyone who wanted to be a surrogate mother to Cambodia to earn some extra commission.

Also a former surrogate mother like L., NTPT (born 1997, Ho Chi Minh City) after a successful surrogacy (September 2024), the remuneration partly paid off her husband's gambling debt, T. also dreamed of becoming a broker to earn more capital for business.

"At that time, I followed Leo to Cambodia to implant the embryo but it didn't work. Then I went to Ms. D. to go to Thailand to implant it and luckily it worked. Then I returned to Vietnam to take care of the pregnancy with 3-4 other people in an apartment building in Binh Chanh district and gave birth at TD Hospital," T. recounted her journey.

Li (living in Ho Chi Minh City) boasted that she had bought a house with the money she had received from "renting her belly" twice before, and was currently continuing her journey of surrogacy for the third time. "Now the incision is protruding, it looks horrible" - Li lifted her shirt to show us the long scars on her belly from two previous "renting her belly" pregnancies that required cesarean sections.

According to this person, this was the first time she went to China to give birth legally. However, because she was "greedy" for money and wanted to give birth again, she stayed for another 5 months to wait for the lining to develop again.

As a result, her visa expired. When she successfully gave birth the second time and returned home, she was detained at the border gate on suspicion of illegal border crossing. For her two "belly rentals" in China, Li was paid 150,000 yuan per case. If it was twins, the fee would be up to 170,000 - 180,000 yuan (over 600 million VND).

The third time, Li decided to "rent her belly" in Cambodia. She said that after the embryo implantation in an apartment, she lived in the same house with 17 other people, 14 of whom were brought over by D., the rest were Leo.

Thanks to the money from her two previous "womb rentals", she boasted that she had bought an apartment on installments. And she continued to be a surrogate mother for the third time to have more income to pay the rent. "As long as you are healthy and strong, you can still do it. Some people have gone through it for the fourth time, and if their health check is okay, they can still continue," Li said when asked if she would continue with her fourth pregnancy.

A series of surrogacy rings were destroyed.

In January 2021, Long Bien District Police (old, Hanoi) initiated a case, prosecuted the accused, and temporarily detained Hoang Hue Tam (27 years old, Thai Nguyen province) for organizing surrogacy for commercial purposes and fraudulent appropriation of property.

Tam uses social networks to search for information about infertile people who want to have children, and also finds women who want to be surrogate mothers to make money.

These women are mainly students aged 18-25 from many provinces and cities. Each "surrogacy" costs 300-700 million VND, Tam benefits from 100-200 million VND, the surrogate mother receives 200-500 million VND depending on the case.

In September 2022, Long Bien District Police (old, Hanoi) continued to prosecute Phan Thi Hang Oanh (35 years old, residing in Long Bien) for organizing surrogacy for commercial purposes and Tran Thanh Son (37 years old, residing in My Duc district, Hanoi) for falsifying documents of agencies and organizations.

On November 12, 2023, Dong Da District Police (old, Hanoi) initiated a case, prosecuted the accused, and temporarily detained Tran Thi Bich Thuan (47 years old) and Tran Thi Bich Van (40 years old, Thuan's younger sister) for organizing surrogacy for commercial purposes. The two subjects were accused of colluding and organizing surrogacy at a price of 800 million VND/single pregnancy and 1.5 billion VND/twin pregnancy.

In November 2023, Thua Thien Hue Police (old) dismantled the largest surrogacy and human organ trafficking ring in the Central Highlands - Central region.

Police discovered on Facebook groups for surrogacy, finding surrogates, and egg donations in Ho Chi Minh City - Hue - Hanoi, a series of posts related to surrogacy and organ trafficking.

Each surrogacy costs 450 - 600 million VND, egg donation is about 25 million VND, kidney transplant is 900 million - 1.45 billion VND.

Surrogacy contract package 1.3 billion

From a post in the group "Egg Donation and Surrogacy", a man named LCT expressed his desire to have a child and offered to sign a surrogacy contract for a cost of 300 million VND.

He said he had tried to find someone to do it for 270 million at a clinic in Ho Chi Minh City but failed. This time, he wanted to "take the eggs" from the pregnant woman to save on embryo creation costs.

In addition to the plan to do it in Ho Chi Minh City, T. also mentioned going to Cambodia or China with a cost of 380 million VND.

Pregnant women can take care of their pregnancy themselves (with support of 5 million VND/month) or return to live in Dong Nai (where T. lives) for easier supervision. "We need money, you need the child, hope we can cooperate," T. said.

A woman named M. (living in Hanoi) also claims to be a full-service surrogacy broker in Vietnam. M. sent a contract stating the cost of 1.3 billion VND - including embryo creation, embryo transfer, embryo screening, nutrition, medicine, care and handling of medical incidents if any. The contract commits to continue until the pregnant woman becomes pregnant and gives birth.

TRUC QUYEN - THU HIEN - MINH HOA

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/dieu-tra-phanh-phui-the-gioi-ngam-cho-thue-bung-gia-350-600-trieu-dong-20250717085805876.htm