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by Ti-Hua Chang
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Human trafficking or modern day slavery has, according to the Vatican, reached in absolute numbers more than the African slave trade. Some estimate there are 27 million modern slaves worldwide.

In a brothel in lower Manhattan, past an iron gate in a cramped, studio-sized apartment sit two women in bikini tops. There are five tiny bedrooms, some already occupied with customers. Wearing a hidden camera, I pose as a John.

One woman leads me to a 4 by 8-foot room. There's a bed and little else. She has been in America for two years and can say in English, when asked how much, "I know, but I cannot talk to customer how much."

The pimp says $130. I can see clothes, a refrigerator, signs some women live here. Federal authorities suspect and community contacts say pimps forcibly keep some women here, taking their money while they service up to a dozen men a day.

Two years ago in Chinatown, police busted a brothel where the women were forced to service men and turn over their money to their bosses. The women never left their rooms and were never paid. It's human trafficking. Modern day slaves in New York. After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with illegal guns in sales, an estimated $9 billion to organized crime.

"It a shame of America that we have so something as close to slavery as you can get," said Martin Ficke, the special Agent in charge of the New York office of ICE or Immigration Customs Enforcement.

Human trafficking victims tend to be poor immigrant women, who are desperate to be Americans. Traffickers tell them they'll be anything from dancers to maids. Most end up selling sex in places like a back alley Brooklyn apartment -- nearly bare except for beds and two women for sex.

In a Queens brothel 20-something-year-old Mei has sex with men to pay her nearly $80,000 smuggling debt. Her parents sent her here from China. After working as a waitress in the Midwest, she became a prostitute in New York to meet her $3,000-per-month debt.

What if she fails to pay?

"Baba Mama zi ma bang?" Translation: What would happen to her mother and father?

"They would be killed," she said.

Said Special Agent Ficke: "This is potentially a human trafficking case."

Law enforcement estimates thousands of Human Trafficking victims end up in the New York Area. Its diverse population hides and supports the ethnicities of those enslaved.

They are Asian, Eastern European, Latin and Central American.

A 23-year-old Honduran woman who called herself "Johanna" came to New Jersey to tend bar last year. A distant cousin said he'd pay $5,000 for false papers and transportation through Mexico. In Union, N.J., the bill became $20,000. The work became drinking and dancing with men who fondled her. She said she worked Monday to Monday from 6 p.m. to 2 am.

"I felt depressed, hopeless, constantly crying," Johanna said.

She was freed because of an immigration raid.

Not as lucky were dozens of victims of the Carreto brothers. They smuggled Mexican women into Queens then beat, raped and held them captive as prostitutes from 1996 to 2004.

Since 2000, a federal law has made human trafficking a felony. New York does not have a human trafficking law. Sources said it is floundering in Albany, because politicians do not want to fund enforcement.

If you suspect someone is a human trafficking victim, you can call a government hotline . . . 1 888 373-7888.

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