Then, almost as an afterthought, he said: ``Just like a rat trying to get some cheese.''

The mission's chief executive officer, Ju'Coby Pittman, said: ``They go from shelter to shelter and prey on them.''

Such tactics became so routine, and the promises so hollow, that Pittman once posted a sign: ``Do not get in the van.''

But the vans still roll through here, through Tampa, through Orlando, on the road to farm country.

A BIG FARM STATE Abuse is an unseen element in Florida's No. 2 industry

Agriculture is a huge business in Florida. The state produces three-fourths of the citrus harvested across the United States each year, and it leads the world in production of grapefruit. In 2000, the top 10 vegetable growers in the Southeastern United States were based in Florida. Across the country, only California boasts a richer agricultural crop.

Yet behind the sunny image of Florida's No. 2 industry, abuse abounds, and it is not limited to one rough boss or one patch of hard-luck laborers.

``It's incredibly widespread,'' said prosecutor Molloy, who has previously sent bosses away for enslaving farmworkers. ``There is someone who has been making money off the misery - and off the hopes and dreams - of other people.''

At the bottom rung of the system are the 200,000 seasonal farmworkers who harvest crops from outside the state's urban hubs to its dusty corridors.

``You've made a job so bad that the only people who are going to do farm work are undocumented aliens or crack addicts,'' said Gregory S. Schell, a Lake Worth lawyer with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project of Florida Legal Services. ``That's a tremendous indictment of the agricultural industry.''

His criticism is not of the workers who harvest Florida's bountiful crops, but of the industry enriched by their sweat labor.

Most pickers in Florida and nationwide are undocumented foreign workers, and many native farmhands have had run-ins with the law. There is a reason for that worker profile, advocates say: Crew bosses hire the vulnerable because they can exploit them. The laborers, hungry for a fresh start, are quick to take the job.

Florida is home to more crew-chief contractors than any state in the nation, with more than one in three - 3,027 of 8,832 - based in the state. Florida also leads the nation in the number of crew-chief contractors and assistants currently stripped of licenses to work because of labor violations, with 43 percent of the total, The Herald has found. They have relegated workers to shabby housing, cheated them of pay or otherwise skirted federal migrant worker laws.

For a glimpse inside this world, follow Lisa Butler, a Florida Rural Legal Services attorney representing workers who fled their contractors' employ in far North Florida.

Butler does her legwork at night and in potentially dangerous environs, visiting housing camps to pass out fliers letting workers know their rights. More than once, she has been confronted by crew chiefs or their workers.

``There is a pattern up here of severe violations,'' Butler said as she wheeled through Hastings and Spuds and East Palatka, on her way to the next cramped housing camp. ``It's a function of how this industry lets crew leaders control the pay.''

The picture she sees evokes images of America's darkest days.

``I felt like being a slave, just working to support his family,'' farmworker Isiah Brown, 43, a native of South Carolina, said of the boss who controlled him.

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