But the smuggler had it figured out: Work as a prostitute in America, and the debt will be gone in no time.
So began the journey of Alyssa Chainut, chattel in a sex trade that ensnares more and more women every year.
Chainut - an alias - worked in illicit massage parlors in Los Angeles before heading to the Philadelphia area, where, police say, the business of Asian-run houses of prostitution thrives.
After four months - and about 400 encounters of paid sex - Chainut cleared her debt. She turned over money to traffickers, who kept track of her IOU as though she were making payments on a car loan.
"If I come here and I know people, maybe I could work in a restaurant or something," she said in her limited English. "But if I don't know people; I have to do that."
Even after she paid her debt, Chainut kept working in the massage parlors because, she said, it was the only work she knew.
Up to 50,000 women and children are trafficked every year to the United States, according to a recent CIA report. Some pay off their debts as seamstresses in sweatshops or as household servants. But more are put to work as prostitutes, the report said.
Until their debts are covered, the women are confined to the brothels.
"Organized-crime groups are engaging in human slave trade," said Russell Bergeron, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Even if an individual agrees to do this doesn't mean it's OK."
Police in the Philadelphia area see the result: The number of brothels posing as massage parlors, health spas or "acupressure" clinics is flourishing.
Nationwide, immigration officials have launched Operation Lost Thai, an investigation that so far has identified 250 brothels in 26 cities - including Philadelphia - that employ victims of trafficking.
