Bangladesh, Sept. 14 -- For couples desperate to become parents and women who agreed to carry children for them, commercial surrogacy is often presented as a carefully managed journey toward a life-changing moment. Contracts are signed, medical procedures arranged, payments scheduled and agencies promise to coordinate the complicated legal and logistical maze that can stretch across several countries.

For clients of World Center of Baby, that promise has instead become a story of financial losses, unpaid surrogate mothers, stranded parents, unanswered questions and, in one tragic case, the death of a pregnant surrogate in Albania.

The agency, which advertised surrogacy services across Ukraine, Albania, Georgia, Cyprus and Mexico, told ...