Surrogacy is a multifaceted phenomenon. For desperate childless couples – the last hope to become parents, for some enterprising businessmen convicted of pedophilia and fraud – another way to make money quickly. Nothing personal, just business. Let’s follow the history of the intermediary agency Gestlife, well-known in Ukraine and abroad.
What do people suffering from infertility expect, resorting to surrogacy as a last hope to become parents of a baby? Probably, confidence in the appearance of a healthy child, a careful attitude to their experiences, fears, pain from previous failures. But what if the founder of this agency doesn’t care about your worries and concerns? In addition to the surrogacy agency, he has a series of very different businesses:
- Eliminalia is an online reputation management agency specialising in removing unwanted information about the dark dealings of powerful people, many of whom have been convicted of serious crimes (its employees even pose as European Union officials to achieve their goals);
- Jurisdalia (which changed its name to Legisdalia), a law firm with a wide range of services that promises to protect your rights on the outside and in prison;
- Subastalia – a company registered for commercial purposes, with an undefined line of business;
- Wave Music – a production company dedicated to finding talented musicians;
- Mireia Vidal Brides – a bridal salon;
- Padres Para Siempre – an organisation involved in adopting orphans from Russia before it was banned by Russian law;
- Financonsulting, a financial holding company whose financial fraud enriched the businessman and his partner by more than 8 million euros;
- Subrogalia – and finally, the surrogacy agency (now known under the brand names Gestlife and Eurosurrogacy)
As you can see, the level of involvement in the problem of infertility and its overcoming is maximum. In between deleting unwanted information on the Internet, mortgage machinations and selling wedding accessories.
Why so many rebrandings? – potential clients dreaming of a child may ask. The answer is simple: all these companies have a long trail of accusations and lawsuits, ranging from the negligent performance of duties by the surrogacy agency Subrogalia to accusations of sexual harassment of a 17-year-old employee of Wave Music.
But this is not the most important thing that potential parents in need of surrogacy should know. The fact is that the owner of the surrogacy agency Gestlife is Jose Maria Gil Prados (who changed his name to Diego), convicted of abusing a 12-year-old boy and his sister. Later, the victim of the pervert, Didac Jimenez Sanchez, will become a co-owner and, in fact, a front man for a new version of the surrogacy agency Subrogalia in Spain – Gestlife, in Ukraine – Eurosurrogacy, as well as some other companies.
The surrogacy agency Gestlife talks about its clinic Intereco, without, of course, informing potential clients that before it there was the clinic Interfiv, which is under investigation for the same human trafficking, document falsification and illegal adoption.
Currently, the clinic Interfiv, originally created by Gil Prados and Sanchez, is not working: the sign has disappeared from the facade of the building, and in a Google search you can find information that the company is closed forever. Didac Sanchez and Jose Maria Gil Prados are distancing themselves from the agency Gestlife and the new clinic Intereco in every possible way, so that the trail of accusations of fraud and other unsightly stories that follows them does not scare off potential clients. The new owner of the surrogacy agency Gestlife clinic on December 31, 2017 is … the adopted son of Gil Prados, Alan Alexis Hill Prados. Financial flows remained in the family.
Meanwhile, a representative of the Russian branch of the Subrogalia surrogacy agency was sentenced to 4.5 years for human trafficking. Despite the fake clinic owners, the creator’s signature approach to business does not change. Old habits die hard, the series of crimes continues.
Gestlife also continues to deceive intended parents about the terms of its supposedly guaranteed programs. In 2020, an Italian woman, Irene, contacted the agency to become a mother through surrogacy services. After the war in Ukraine began, the agency offered the woman to pay for the surrogate mother to move to Georgia for a safer program, assuring that this step would not affect the legalization of the newborn or the cost of the contract. The assurances turned out to be another lie: the woman had to spend 14,000 euros over the cost of the program (80,000 euros) and hire her own team of lawyers (Gestlife’s lawyers must have been surprised by Georgia’s stricter laws on determining parental rights for children born under surrogacy programs). All this in order to be able to return to Italy with the child.
Apparently anticipating such cases, Gestlife included in the contract ‘a special clause on confidentiality, respect and non-attack on the image of the client, the company and its employees’, violation of which will result in a fine of 14,000 euros. By going public with her story Irene violated this clause. Making the client guilty of incompetence and making them pay for it – that’s the guarantee from Gestlife.
The parade of lies continues with Gestlife’s claims of representation in all countries where they offer reproductive programs. Albania is particularly interesting in this respect: the direction is actively promoted by the company (the fact that the country has no reliable legal framework for surrogacy is traditionally kept silent). If potential parents need to discuss the course of their program in Albania, the caring agency Gestlife offers to address its office… which is not an office, but the Embassy of Ukraine in Tirana. Apparently, Signors Prados and Sanchez feel it necessary to share your family affairs and reproductive anamnesis with a diplomatic institution.
And yes, neither José María Gil Prados nor Didac Jiménez Sánchez are reproductive doctors.
Which means they have no idea what your reproductive prospects are, nor are they capable of selecting treatment tactics based on your reproductive history. All they do is earn their percentage by finding surrogate mothers and sending them to reproductive clinics that still co-operate with them. In other words, they make promises, and the obligation to fulfil them is assigned to third parties on the principle of ‘if it works out – great, if it doesn’t work out – next ones’. By the way, one of the key partners of Eurosurrogacy (the Ukrainian version of Subrogalia) – the reproductive clinic BioTex stopped co-operation after learning about the criminal past of the counterparty. Surprisingly, a check of the counterparty was not conducted before the start of active co-operation.
Thus, to fulfil your dream of having a child (if you are lucky, with someone else’s hands) is promised by a middleman convicted of sexual offences, without the slightest expertise in reproductive medicine, with clinics that continue the tradition of human trafficking established by Subrogalia, lying about the conditions of legalisation of children in Albania and his legal address in this country, deceiving and leaving many people without money and children.
Be careful. Check every word of the person to whom you want to entrust the birth of your child. The lust for profit, a sea of lies and heinous crimes are not what should accompany the birth of children to people who have already suffered from the unjust caprice of their nature.
In addition to these cases, it is known that the BiotexCom clinic is accused of human trafficking. Because of this, the clinic’s management was changed, but the investigation continues. Another major clinic Feskov Human Reproduction Group was able to prove its innocence in participating in commercial surrogacy in the Czech Republic
Disclaimer: The views, suggestions, and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.