Wiz Khalifa has scored a major win in his Romanian drug case, although his legal fight overseas is still going.
As spotted on HotNewHipHop, the Pittsburgh rapper’s nine-month prison sentence has been overturned. According to Romanian news agency Agerpres, the Bucharest Court of Appeal granted his legal team’s challenge on Tuesday, November 3, canceling the December 2025 ruling handed down by the Constanța Court of Appeal. The court also annulled the warrant issued to enforce that prison sentence.
There is a significant caveat: Wiz has not been acquitted. The appeal filed by DIICOT, Romania’s organized crime and terrorism prosecution agency, will be heard again on November 12. The court has also directed that arrangements be made for the rapper to participate by videoconference, meaning the latest ruling gives him relief from that sentence while leaving the underlying case unresolved.
The trouble began in July 2024, when Wiz performed at the Beach, Please! festival in Costinești, a resort town on Romania’s Black Sea coast. Authorities accused him of possessing more than 18 grams of cannabis and smoking an additional quantity onstage in a handmade cigarette. He was detained and later released, but the incident led to a criminal case for possessing cannabis for personal use.
Wiz addressed the incident shortly afterward, offering an apology for lighting up during his performance. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to the country of Romania by lighting up on stage,” he wrote on X. He also said officers had treated him respectfully and confirmed that they had let him go.
The case initially resulted in a criminal fine of 3,600 Romanian lei in April 2025. Prosecutors appealed that punishment, seeking a tougher sentence, and the Constanța Court of Appeal imposed the nine-month prison term that December. An effort to annul the sentence was rejected in February 2026, making this week’s successful challenge another turn in a legal dispute that has stretched well beyond the original festival appearance.
Wiz’s situation also brings to mind other high-profile Americans whose trips overseas became international legal stories. WNBA star Brittney Griner and A$AP Rocky both spent time in foreign custody, although their cases involved different allegations and outcomes.
Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February 2022 after authorities found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. She pleaded guilty but said she had packed the cartridges by mistake and had no intention of breaking Russian law. A Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison that August, while the U.S. government designated her as wrongfully detained. She ultimately spent nearly 10 months in Russian custody before being released on December 8, 2022, in a prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Rocky, meanwhile, was detained in Sweden in July 2019 following a June 30 street fight in Stockholm. He maintained that he had acted in self-defense, but a Swedish court found him guilty of assault that August. After spending approximately a month in custody before his release pending the verdict, Rocky received a conditional sentence and was not required to return to prison. He and two members of his entourage were also ordered to pay compensation to the victim.
For Wiz, attention now turns to the November 12 hearing and the renewed consideration of prosecutors’ appeal. The nine-month sentence has been canceled, but the final outcome of his Romanian case remains unsettled.
