Forty-seven dogs were pulled from a dogfighting ring in South Carolina, and many of them could not be saved. Authorities say the animals had suffered so much from the way they were bred and handled that a large number had to be put down.

The ring was one piece of a much larger criminal network investigators call the “Duffle Bag Boyz.” A state grand jury has indicted 25 people on 129 counts tied to drug trafficking, guns and dogfighting, mostly in Chester and Lancaster Counties. Investigators seized fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and 30 firearms along the way.

Five of the people charged were already locked up in state prison. Officials say they used illegal cellphones to help steer the operation from inside their cells. “The use of cell phones in prisons rears its ugly head again,” said South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson.

As long as contraband phones keep slipping into prisons, people behind bars can keep running crime on the outside. Neighborhoods and animals pay the price.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson should pursue the strongest animal cruelty and dogfighting charges available against everyone responsible for these dogs’ suffering. Governor Henry McMaster and the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) must also shut down the flow of illegal phones into state prisons, with tougher searches, better detection and technology that blocks unauthorized cell signals.

These dogs never had a chance. The next ones still can. Sign the petition to demand justice for the dogs and cut off the prison phones that kept this network running.