Foreign clients accuse surrogacy agency World Center of Baby of fraud

An international agency, World Center of Baby, linked to Kyiv and recruiting Ukrainian women as surrogate mothers, is accused of defrauding clients: after collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars, the company effectively ceased operations, leaving both prospective parents and women who were already carrying or had given birth to children without money.

The investigation was conducted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and its partners.

The agency offered surrogacy programs in Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, Cyprus, and Mexico. Some packages cost more than $100,000. The company took responsibility for finding surrogate mothers, providing medical support during pregnancy, handling legal paperwork, and making payments to the women. In February 2026, clients were informed that the American firm World Center Group Corp., through which contracts were processed, intended to declare bankruptcy. However, OCCRP journalists found no such filing in U.S. federal courts. The company continued to be listed as active, but World Center of Baby’s phones were no longer working, and clients received no explanation about the fate of their money or their programs.

One of the most tragic cases involves a young Ukrainian woman whom journalists refer to as Yana. She was carrying a child for a man from the United Kingdom and was due to give birth in Albania. In April 2026, at eight months pregnant, the woman was found dead in an apartment in Tirana. The baby also died. Prior to this, Yana had stopped receiving her monthly payments, and contact with her World Center of Baby medical coordinator had virtually ceased. A few hours before her death, she complained to her boyfriend of a severe headache. The death certificate lists sudden death as the cause. According to Yana’s sister, the woman did not want to go to Albania, but the program required it.

“She just wanted to go back to her country, where there were people who loved her,” the deceased’s relative said.

Among the affected clients is a Brazilian couple, Roberta and Felipe Martins. A Ukrainian surrogate mother gave birth to twins for them, but the money the parents had transferred to the agency in several installments to pay the woman did not, according to them, reach her. Shortly before the birth, the Brazilians transferred another sum of €14,500 to World Center of Baby. After the children were born, it emerged that the surrogate mother had not received her final payment. As a result, the couple was forced to borrow $5,000 from relatives and begin repaying the debt to the woman themselves. Due to problems with paperwork, the family spent more than a month in Ukraine.

Another couple from the United Kingdom paid World Center of Baby approximately €77,000 for a program that was to result in the birth of two children. According to the couple, the promised services were never delivered. When the British clients demanded a refund, they were told that only €450 remained in the company’s bank account. Legal proceedings are now underway in this case. An American couple paid World Center of Baby more than $100,000 in 2024. After months of delays in service delivery, they demanded a refund. They were initially offered only $22,000 back, and later $90,000, but on the condition that they sign a confidentiality agreement and delete negative reviews of the company. The couple refused and is now attempting to recover the money through a court in Mexico.

For several years, Ukrainian businessman Vladislav Natochiy was listed on the World Center of Baby website as founder, owner, and managing director. He also owned the now-closed Alice Clinic in Kyiv and remains the owner of a clinic of the same name in Tbilisi. Natochiy told journalists that World Center of Baby had gone through a “severe financial and operational crisis,” but denied any wrongdoing.

“Debts and unfulfilled obligations do not in themselves prove fraud or criminal intent. I acknowledge that clients, surrogate mothers, employees, and partners faced serious difficulties during this period, and I deeply regret that,” he said.

According to Natochiy, more than 350 children were born through World Center of Baby programs over seven years of operation. At the same time, Natochiy did not appear in the documents of the American entity World Center Group Corp. The officially registered president is listed as Yuriy Star, who claims he was merely a consultant, helped register the company and open bank accounts, and then handed access to them over to Natochiy. Journalists were unable to locate Malvina Jonas, listed in the documents as director: five former employees said they had never seen or spoken to her. The agency’s listed contact person in Georgia was Zurab Shvelidze, who told journalists he had no idea his name and contact details had been placed on the World Center of Baby website. Former company COO Daniel Epstein stated that he did not control financial flows, had reported to management that payments to surrogate mothers, employees, and partners had stopped, but that financial decisions were outside his authority.

Following the company’s collapse, questions arose about the fate of clients’ embryos and other genetic material. Some former World Center of Baby clients began receiving messages from another company — Blue Oak Fertility. It informed them that their biological materials were safe and offered to continue the surrogacy program for an additional payment of more than €40,000. Journalists uncovered links between the two entities: the Blue Oak Fertility domain was registered by the aforementioned Yuriy Star, and Daniel Epstein was sending former World Center of Baby clients offers from the new agency.

One former client told journalists that her family had decided several years ago to destroy the embryos remaining after the birth of their daughter and had signed the relevant documents. She later unexpectedly received an offer from Blue Oak Fertility to use those same embryos for a new surrogacy program.

“We are shocked, confused, and upset, because we don’t know whether the embryos were actually destroyed or transferred to another company,” she said.

Former head of the Kyiv Alice Clinic Irina Mironova says she is currently paying out of her own pocket to store some of the remaining genetic material belonging to former World Center of Baby clients, but does not know how long she will be able to continue doing so.

“I don’t know when they might simply change the locks — and everything will be lost,” she said.