The rights-and-liberties judge at Mehedinți Tribunal ordered on Tuesday, 20 October, 30 days of pre-trial detention for a 33-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman from the same family. The measure is preventive, not a conviction. The two are being investigated by DIICOT’s Mehedinți territorial office for high-risk drug trafficking and for operations, without a right, with products they allegedly knew could have psychoactive effects.

The Romanian Police communique says that in January 2026 the man, then in detention, allegedly asked the woman to buy and send into the prison sheets of paper with banned substances, to sell to other inmates. In February he allegedly gave another inmate a fragment of paper. In March, at his urging, the woman allegedly sold several sheets to a 21-year-old woman, to send to another inmate. Those are accusations in the file, not facts found by a court.

On 19 October prosecutors ordered the two held for 24 hours. The third suspect, 21, was placed under judicial control for 60 days. News.ro describes the man as a repeat offender; the police communique does not use that word, and notes that he was already incarcerated.

With support from prison police, sheets and envelopes were seized. Analyses cited by investigators identified synthetic cannabinoids MDMB-4en-PINACA and 5F-ADB. Today’s report is not a verdict on quantity or effects.

SCCO Mehedinți, BCCO Craiova, county gendarmes and staff from the Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Târgu Jiu and Craiova prisons took part. The investigation continues. The people under investigation have the presumption of innocence.

The pre-trial detention lasts 30 days, unless the court extends or replaces it. It is not a conviction and it does not close the file.

Image: Cana Roxana, county tribunal, Drobeta-Turnu Severin, 2008, CC BY-SA 3.0 RO, Wikimedia Commons; the court, not a photograph of the October 2026 file.

Sources consulted: Mehedinti: a detainee and a relative, held in pre-trial detention for drug trafficking - News.ro; Press release - Romanian Police - AGERPRES, 21 October 2026.