MADRID — Although surrogacy is not legal in Spain, Gestlife, the agency that presents itself as the European leader in this business, has its headquarters right across from Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló in downtown Barcelona. The logo on the door depicts a baby curled up inside a capital G. “Gestlife. Surrogacy. Information Office,” it reads.
A young woman with a slight foreign accent opens the door. The entrance hall is a small foyer with a sofa. Several sheets of paper with flags of different countries hang on the walls. “The company’s policy is not to speak to journalists,” it reads.
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Gestlife explains on its website that it belongs to the American business group Invest Medical LLC, registered in Florida. Yet La Marea has found evidence that it offers its surrogacy services through a complex network of Spanish companies that operate every kind of activity, from commercial and advertising work to contract management — although, officially, they do not appear to have any connection with Gestlife.
Furthermore, they all share one sole administrator: the Catalan businessman who, in 2007, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for abusing a minor from the Casal del Raval children’s home. Today, he goes by the name Diego Prados Hill. Back then, his name was José María Hill Prados.
After insisting, the young woman agreed to provide us with an email address so we could send some questions to those at the head of Gestlife. On her handwritten note, we can see an email address with the domain panamsa.com. When we asked her what Panamsa was, she shrugged and said she didn’t know.
A complex trail
Understanding exactly what Gestlife (a company that claims to offer “surrogacy programs in all countries where surrogacy is legal”) is and who is behind this agency is anything but easy.
Neither the Gestlife website nor the Invest Medical LLC website shows any trace of the companies owned by Diego Prados Hill that work for this surrogacy agency. The only one that existed was deleted after La Marea asked details about its activity — a few days before publishing this article. The company in question is Sociedad Prestataria de Cobros y Gestión de Pagos SL, which until the end of last February was listed as the responsible party in the legal notice on Gestlife’s website. Its main activity is “other business support activities for companies under the category n.c.o.p. [assigned to activities that do not fit in any section of the Tax on Economic Activities (IAE)].”
Other companies owned by Prados Hill that work for the surrogacy agency are Promarketing and Sales Force SL, which handles Gestlife’s commercial operations, as well as IMarketing and ISales SL; and Panamerican Sales Institute SL, the company that owns Panamsa, which, among others, operates a training center offering courses for surrogacy mothers after childbirth.
Some of these companies managed by Prados Hill share a telephone number and employees, as La Marea was able to verify after making several calls and visiting Gestlife’s office in Barcelona. Their tax addresses also coincide, spread across several apartments located in two buildings in a large block on Avenida Meridiana in the Catalan capital.
But the most obvious evidence that they are all linked to Gestlife is that their respective annual accounts have been filed, at least once, by the same person, whose email address belongs to the domain gestlifesurrogacy.com, as recorded in the Commercial Registry documents consulted by La Marea.
They never replied.
This person is the head of human resources at Gestlife and also appears as such at IMarketing and ISales SL and ProMarketing And Sales Force SL — at least at the end of 2022, according to documents consulted by La Marea. This person is also the person with the Panamsa email address to whom we were referred at the Gestlife headquarters to send our written questions. They never replied.
At the address on Meridiana Avenue, the company Empire External Services SL was also registered in the name of Kevin Arjona Calzada, CEO of Gestlife. Although this company was liquidated in February 2023, its information still appeared on March 3 in the legal notice on the website of the surrogacy law firm Brachmann & Brachmann, which presents itself in some forums as the legal department of Gestlife. The firm’s alleged legal director, Amaya Itúrbide, was promoting the agency’s services at the Wish for a Baby trade show, held on March 1 and 2 in Berlin, Germany, La Marea found out after visiting its stand.
The Story of Prados Hill
in 2007, José María Hill Prados was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy. By the time he was released, the minor for whom he had been convicted had already reached the age of majority and had started some business collaborations with his abuser’s adopted children. This cooperation is one of the pieces of evidence included in an investigation by Spain-based digital newspaper El Confidencial, which in 2015 concluded that the true owner of the network of companies was Hill Prados, although his name did not appear in any records.
The boy was Diego Giménez Sánchez, who by the time he turned 22, had become a young prodigy in the Spanish business world known by his new official name: Diego (Dídac, in Catalan) Sánchez Giménez. Among the companies in his empire, supposedly made up of 18 companies, you can find Eliminalia, the firm that cleaned up its clients’ online pasts using fraudulent techniques; and the agency Subrogalia, which was sentenced in 2017 to pay almost 90,000 euros for deceptive practices in which the company ended up asking clients for more money than agreed upon to carry out a surrogacy process. You can also find Gestlife Solutions SA, a company founded in 2016 and from which he separated in 2018.
Currently, according to his social media accounts, Sánchez Giménez’s main focus is the activities of the Dídac Sánchez Ideas Foundation, through which he is reportedly dedicated to assisting children in poverty.
A 21-year-old man accuses the businessman of repeated sexual assaults under threat and manipulation.
Hill Prados operates differently today. At 65, he is no longer hidden behind companies registered in the names of young people like Dídac or his own children. Now, he appears in the Commercial Registry as the sole director of 13 Spanish companies under his new name, Diego Prados Hill; in 11 of them, he is accompanied as representative by one of his sons, Alan Alexis Hill Prados.
The evidence that Diego Prados Hill is behind Gestlife goes beyond official records. Several former employees of the company contacted by La Marea, who requested anonymity for fear of legal retaliation, have identified him as the true owner of the surrogacy agency, claiming he was the first to enter and the last to leave the offices on Meridiana Avenue. Exactly as was the case at Surrogalia, as confirmed by El Confidencial.
Furthermore, in August 2024, the Association of Colombian Centers for Human Reproduction (ACCER) sent its members a notice informing them that someone “who in Colombia has presented himself under the name Diego… has sought to enter the country to perform human reproductive medicine services” on behalf of the company Gestlife. ACCER warned its members of Hill Prados’ past and recommended “caution, prudence and care.” The case went to court, as Alan Alexis Hill Prados sued ACCER for damaging Invest Medical’s image. Ultimately, the court dismissed the case.
Another complaint of assault
Another fact linking Prados Hill to Gestlife relates to the investigation launched at the end of last January by Barcelona’s 13th Court of Instruction. As reported by Catalonian Crónica Global, a 21-year-old man accuses the businessman of repeated sexual assaults under threat and manipulation, which caused him “anxiety and distress.” According to his statement, he met Prados Hill at his office on Meridiana Avenue, where he hired him to work as a messenger for Gestlife in exchange for “sex” once a week.
Although Gestlife explains on its website that it operates in 11 countries and has “12 years of experience,” the surrogacy agency provides no information about its origins or its management team. The photos of the alleged staff are actually stock images from the free bank Freepik. The “About Us” section doesn’t mention names, but instead displays a list of supposed awards given by organizations of dubious credibility. Among them, one for “pet products and services.”
The claim around those 12 years of service clashes with the comments of users who identify themselves as representatives of the company on internet forums that deny any link between the current Gestlife and Subrogalia, despite the fact that the common thread between the two seems evident. For example, their respective promotional videos include similar phrases and describe similar ways of working. But, undoubtedly, the most revealing clue is found in the commercial register: Subrogalia was incorporated in 2013, just 12 years ago, while the Gestlife brand was born in 2016, when Gestlife Solutions SA was created.
The representative of Invest Medical, the U.S. company to which Gestlife supposedly belongs to, is Joan Ramon Gallego Aragón, who signed the contracts with the clients to which La Marea has had access. Gallego has been linked to the Gestlife universe for years: In 2022, he was one of the liquidators of Gestlife Solutions SA, Diego Sánchez Giménez’s company, and in 2015, he was listed as a co-founder of the Dídac Sánchez Foundation. Several former employees confirm having seen him at the Meridiana offices working in accounting.
A new face at Gestlife
Currently, Gestlife’s most visible figure is Kevin Arjona Calzada, a 29-year-old who identifies himself as CEO of Gestlife Spain on his LinkedIn profile and who maintains numerous business connections with Diego Prados Hill and his children.
Freshly turned 18, in 2016, Arjona registered Empire External Services, a company that was subsequently used to create various web domains related to Gestlife, including the website of the law firm Brachmann & Brachmann. A year later, he registered the company International Reproduction Programs SL, dedicated to “the advertising of assisted reproduction treatments,” in his name.
Among Arjona’s alleged business successes is the MyFreeHands app, designed for listening to WhatsApp messages while driving. This app was developed by Secure Drive Empire SL, a company in which the young man was the sole director and Prados Hill the attorney – until its closure in 2023. The businessman has subsequently registered other companies with names that include the word Empire.
Arjona explains how to present a “trustworthy image” of a company.
Arjona was also director of Investmedical Europe Ltd, a company active between 2019 and 2022, whose corporate name is similar to that of the American group that currently owns the Gestlife brand. He also shares several companies with Alan Alexis Hill Prados, who, according to internal sources, serves as chief accountant.
The names of Kevin Arjona and Alan Alexis Hill Prados appear on several companies registered in the countries where the agency claims to have subsidiaries. But they are registered as tourism companies and avoid explicit references to Gestlife, Invest Medical, or surrogacy. This is the case with Albanian Assistance Group (Albania), Invest Medical Greece (Greece), Assistance Group EU (Czech Republic), Global Assistance Georgia LLC (Georgia), Sogetur (Mexico), and Turismed Colombia (Colombia).
Arjona not only puts his name on companies linked to the Hill Prados family, he also appears in promotional videos for courses offered by Panamsa, in which he explains how to present a “trustworthy image” of a company.
Follow the money
“Taking part in our surrogacy program will allow you to fulfill many of your dreams,” says a Gestlife promotional video in Ukrainian, uploaded to YouTube. The narration comes with stock footage of a blonde woman throwing banknotes in the air. “You’ll be able to buy your own house or a new car, provide the best education for your children, or travel with your family,” the ad says, adding: “No one will take care of you like we do.”
According to Gestlife Ukraine’s own website, women who participate in their program as surrogates can earn around 20,000 euros if the pregnancy is carried out within their borders. This figure increases if they agree to be transferred to other countries, such as Greece, where the payment reaches 23,500 euros for a single baby (they promise additional bonuses in the case of twins or a C-section). In addition, Gestlife offers extra payments to those who recruit other women and, as an added incentive, an iPhone.
The money given to surrogates represent less than a quarter of what couples end up paying Gestlife. According to a contract obtained by La Marea, the agency asked one couple for more than 85,000 euros to hire a woman to carry out her pregnancy outside their country of origin. This amount can increase depending on various circumstances, such as delays in legal procedures, the need for additional medical procedures, the hospitalization of the newborn in an incubator, or the selection of specific characteristics in egg donation.
According to the contract, payment is to be made to a North Carolina bank in the name of a Florida-registered company, Invest Medical LLC. In other cases, payments are made to other bank accounts in New York or even Delaware, where Global Medical Services LLC is registered. The company’s website was created by the now-dissolved Gestlife Solutions SL. However, other internal company documents reviewed by La Marea show a different modus operandi, potentially incompatible with Spanish law, which prohibits advertising and the business of surrogacy.
A new law firm
In reality, the person in charge of selling these services did not work for Gestlife or Invest Medical, but for the Spanish company Promarketing And Sales Force SL, owned by Diego Prados Hill, and received commissions that varied depending on the country of destination of the surrogacy.
This is not an isolated case: Other people who recently worked in sales for Gestlife have confirmed to La Marea that they were hired by the same company and by another with the same characteristics, IMarketing and I Sales SL, for which they had to meet minimum objectives for surrogacy contracts, which were then signed in the name of Invest Medical.
What seems to remain unchanged are Gestlife’s recurring ads on Infojobs.
Another former employee who worked in marketing for Gestlife said they signed the employment contract with Sociedad Prestaria de Cobros y Gestión de Pagos SL., the same company that disappeared from the “data protection” section at the end of February 2025.
This change is not the only one made by companies in the Gestlife galaxy in the days prior to the publication of this report. One of them involves the law firm Brachmann & Brachmann. The name of this law firm, which at the beginning of March 2025 did not exist as a registered company, began appearing on Google Maps on Feb. 24 when searching Gestlife, located right next to the address of the surrogacy agency’s information office. The voices answering the phone have also changed their initial message several times in recent weeks. Sometimes they respond with Gestlife; other times, Brachmann & Brachmann.
What seems to remain unchanged are Gestlife’s recurring ads on Infojobs seeking salespeople to assist “patients requesting information about our parenting programs.” In addition to the gross annual salary of 24,000 euros, the agency offers an incentive system that “can easily reach 80,000 euros per year.”
This report was produced with the collaboration of Dani Domínguez.
