He showed a reporter around two disheveled bedrooms where he said three of the salon workers lived. Each room had its own television and closets that overflowed with clothes and shoes.

"They got everything they needed and it was better than Africa," said Akl Afolabi, 19, who described Kpade Afolabi as his aunt and the third suspect, Houkaney, as a family friend. "Everybody was treated well. We helped them."

All three suspects are Togonese nationals who came to the United States on visas, authorities said.

Hounakey is listed as the owner of Newark Hair Braiding on 18th Avenue while Lassissi Afolabi owns Ashleys Hair Braiding on Central Avenue in East Orange, both businesses where ICE officials said the women were forced to work.

Both businesses were closed yesterday.

The women told investigators their travel documents were taken from them and were told they'd be sent back to Africa if they objected to working without pay, according to the federal complaint.

If they complained or did not return home immediately after work, one worker told investigators, the Afolabis would beat them.

Akl Afolabi denied his father or aunt ever beat the workers. "Nobody was beaten," he said.

The case is the latest in a crackdown on human trafficking, a problem federal authorities say entraps tens of thousands of people a year in the United States.

In recent years, authorities in New Jersey have uncovered cases in which victims have been lured to the U.S. with promises of employment, only to be forced into jobs as prostitutes, domestic workers or in bars and restaurants for little or no pay.

Yesterday's case is believed to be the first time in which hair salons were targeted in a human trafficking investigation.

To smuggle the workers to the United States, authorities say, Kpade Afolabi exploited a program which makes 55,000 immigrant visas available through a lottery to people who come from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

Lottery winners are also allowed to sponsor their spouses and children for legal residency in the United States.

Operating in Togo, the ringleaders provided the smuggled workers with bogus documents so they could assume the identities of family members of visa lottery winners, authorities say.

One cooperating witness, a Togo national said he won the visa lottery in 2001, but could not afford the fees or plane tickets for his children to immigrate.

He told authorities he was approached by Kpade Afolabi, who promised to help him if he would smuggle one of the female workers into the United States by having her pose as his stepdaughter during the application process, which included an interview at the U.S. Embassy.

Another witness, one of the workers, told investigators she was between 15 and 16 when she was lured into the scheme with a promise she would be able to attend school in the United States and work part-time so she could send money to her family.

The woman said she traveled to the United States with Kpade Afolabi and four other females and was taken to a home in New Jersey. She said she was then put to work in a hair braiding salon and forced to work eight to 14 hours per day, six to seven days a week. The three suspects took all the money she earned, she told investigators.

A second worker, a 24-year-old woman, told investigators she was brought into the United States when she was 20 after Kpade Afolabi told her she could make a lot of money braiding hair and would be able to send money to her family in Togo.

The woman said she signed a certificate indicating she had married the lottery winner and then obtained a visa. When she arrived at Kpade Afolabi's house in New Jersey, Afolabi took her identity documents.

She told authorities she began working at braiding salons the day after her arrival and that the Afolabis told her they would send her back to Africa if she did not give them everything she earned.

The 20 women have been placed in protective custody and will be given access to social services, including emergency housing and psychological counseling provided by nonprofit agencies who assist victims of human trafficking