Officials have said that Prison guards and workers are smuggling cellphones to inmates in U. S. prisons, sometimes getting $500 for every phone they bring in.

USA Today reported on Monday that Guards, cooks and clerical workers are a troubling source of the prohibited phones in a smuggling network that also includes criminal gangs and inmates' family members.

Texas prisons Inspector General John Moriarty says, "It's only getting worse."

Inmates use the phones to keep drugs coming into the prisons, to arrange escapes and direct criminal operations on the outside, says Richard Subia, California's deputy director of adult prisons.

According to Subia, California has no criminal law, only prison regulations, prohibiting the providing of cellphones to inmates.

300 prison employees were disciplined and 100 were fired for alleged smuggling in 2009.

USA Today further reported that last year, California prison officials confiscated 6,995 phones, up from 2,800 in 2008. (With Inputs from Agencies)