( CNN ) -- In the black market of prison life , cell phones have become perhaps the hottest commodity . Now , Texas is among a growing number of state governments going after them . Hundreds of contraband cell phones were found behind bars or in transit to Texas inmates in 2008 . Tiny , easy to hide and an unmonitored link for convicts to the outside world , cell phones are valuable contraband , fetching a greater asking price from convicts than some shipments of illegal drugs . John Moriarty , inspector general for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice , said that one phone can fetch as much as $ 2,000 . `` It takes one crooked prison worker to populate a whole prison unit with them , '' he said . More than 1,200 wireless phones sit in law enforcement evidence rooms , all found behind bars or in transit to Texas inmates in 2008 . Moriarty is the investigator and bloodhound the state of Texas uses to trail the illegal traffic . `` These are not stupid people , '' he said of the coordinated efforts to slip phones into the prison and hide them . `` There are a lot of hands in between and they all want a piece of the action . '' Accomplices on the outside vary from family members , to friends to fellow criminals who buy or steal the phones and charge them with minutes . The contraband is then moved through an elaborate series of drop points and usually ferried into the walls of a prison by a guard or trustee -- an escape engineered in reverse . Finding the dirty prison employee is often the key . `` Some of these guys make next to nothing , so you can see how easy it could be to corrupt them , '' Moriarty said . State Sen. John Whitmire , a Houston Democrat and the chair of the state senate 's Criminal Justice Committee , became an ally of Moriarty 's after one phone call in October . He picked up a phone slip from his secretary and called the number on it -- only to realize he had returned a call to a death row inmate 's cell phone . The inmate , he said , was Richard Tabler -- a convicted double murderer who was sharing a wireless phone with nine other inmates . `` At first I thought it was a hoax , '' said Whitmire , who said he called the state justice board and `` read them the riot act . '' Whitmire is one of the sponsors of a bill in the Texas Legislature that would crack down on convicts caught with phones and allow prison systems to monitor and detect cell signals . It 's en route to Gov . Rick Perry 's desk after clearing both houses of the legislature this week . Other efforts are under way at both the state and federal level . In January , U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady , a Texas Republican , introduced legislation that would let prisons jam cell-phone signals within their walls . Last month , Maryland Gov . Martin O'Malley asked the federal government for permission to do so in his state . Prison officials in Arizona are training dogs to sniff out cell phones .
Texas is among a growing number of states going after contraband cell phones . Savvy inmates , outside accomplices , corrupt officials make problem a thorny issue . Bill cracking down on contraband phones clears Texas prisons . Other bills training dogs to sniff out phones , and feds ' expertise in jamming signals .