``When the jugs were full of urine, the smuggler would empty them by pouring them out the window while the van was moving. Sometimes the urine would spill from the jugs.''

After arriving in Immokalee, they labored under Cuello at Manley Farms North Inc., a major Bonita Springs tomato supplier that paid Cuello $24 for every 1,000 pounds of tomatoes harvested. Smuggling fees were docked from workers' checks written on the Manley account, court papers show.

Company President J. Kent Manley Jr. did not respond to four requests for an interview about the Cuello case, nor did he reply to written questions.

Picker Martinez said his four months inside 1365 Sanctuary were filled with little food, long work hours and scant pay. He said a co-worker awakened one night with a scorpion bite on his neck.

``I thought I was going to die there, because I didn't eat well,'' Martinez said. ``And I knew if I escaped, he would beat me. But when I escaped, I felt liberated.''

After escaping in 1999, he bumped into Cuello, who chased him in a Chevy Suburban, yelling obscenities and demanding his coyote fee back.

Cuello, born in Brownsville, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary servitude and went to prison for 33 months in 1999, his contractor's license revoked at the time. Two co-defendants, both relatives, also were convicted.

Cuello, 39, is out now. According to corporate records, he has created another harvesting company, E&B Harvesting & Trucking Inc., based in Naples.

Yet even that is curious. In his 2002 corporate papers, Cuello listed two addresses on Redbird Lane in Naples. Neither could be found. A mail carrier on duty one day said they don't exist.

The Herald sought an interview with Cuello through his father, who lives near the Immokalee trailer. Cuello didn't reply.

His return is a case study showing how, even with a handful of slavery prosecutions brought against corrupt crew bosses, little has changed in Florida's farmworker industry.

Advocates for the farmworkers were pleased each time that bosses like Cuello were prosecuted. They were chagrined that the cases ended there.

Growers employing the criminal bosses were not charged in a single case. It's not that the growers themselves were suspected of enslaving workers. But watchdogs say the industry fosters an atmosphere that allows renegade bosses to rule with criminality.

Last year, for instance, when prosecutors in Fort Pierce put away farm labor contractors Ramiro, Juan and Jose Ramos, the sentencing hearing broadened beyond their crimes into the role of the industry.

Brothers Ramiro and Juan Ramos were convicted of keeping Mexican workers in involuntary servitude at a ``filthy and overcrowded'' Lake Placid housing camp, making them work off $1,000 in smuggling fees by picking fruit for some of the state's major growers.

They and cousin Jose were convicted of assaulting a bus-service owner, Jose Martinez-Cervantes Sr., whom they suspected of whisking workers away.

`` `You're the son of a f--- b-- who has been taking all my people,' '' Martinez-Cervantes quoted them in an interview.

They pistol-whipped him, leaving him unconscious and scarred. For two weeks, he could barely leave bed. ``Pain,'' he said. ``Everywhere.''

The Ramoses got long prison sentences, from 10 to 12 years, although recent court appeals indicate that Juan and Ramiro hope for reduced sentences and Jose's prison time may be cut short.