Two Miami-Dade sergeants have sued the production company owned by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, alleging that the Netflix crime drama 'The Rip' defamed them by weaving real details from a 2016 narcotics case they led into a fictional story that portrays its police protagonists as thieves and killers.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana filed the lawsuit on 6 May 2026 in Miami federal court against Artists Equity, which produced the film. The suit claims the movie caused 'substantial harm' to their personal and professional reputations by using the circumstances of their actual investigation to create the impression that the two officers are corrupt, despite a disclaimer in the credits stating that the film does not depict real people.
The dispute centres on how closely a fictional film may draw from real events before it becomes legally actionable, a boundary that courts have grappled with since the earliest days of cinema.
The real raid and the film it inspired
On 29 June 2016, officers raided a home in Miami Lakes and seized more than $21 million in cash linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker. Santana was the lead detective on the case, and Smith supervised the investigative team. The operation became one of the largest cash seizures in the department's history.
'The Rip,' which debuted on Netflix in January 2026, opens with on-screen text stating it is 'inspired by true events.' Directed by Joe Carnahan, the film stars Damon as Lieutenant Dane Dumars and Affleck as Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne, two Miami-Dade narcotics officers who discover millions in cartel cash during a raid and then conspire to keep it. Affleck and Damon have said publicly that the story is loosely based on accounts from Miami-Dade Police Captain Chris Casiano, who served as a technical advisor on the film.
In a January interview with The Associated Press, Damon said he and Affleck spent time with Casiano and other narcotics officers to prepare. 'We really wanted to kind of understand what those dynamics were like,' Damon said. 'I mean, these units are very tight because they're really putting their lives in each other's hands, and they're doing something that's very dangerous.'
What the officers allege
Smith and Santana are not named in the film, did not participate in its production, and do not identify which specific characters they believe correspond to them. Their lawsuit argues that the film's use of 'unique, non-generic details' from the 29 June 2016 investigation, combined with its Miami-Dade setting and its portrayal of a narcotics team, creates a 'reasonable inference' that the officers depicted are the plaintiffs.
The civil complaint lists the acts that the film ascribes to its fictional officers and that viewers have since associated with the real sergeants: conspiring to steal seized drug money, murdering a supervising officer, communicating with cartel members, committing arson in a residential neighbourhood, endangering civilian lives, repeatedly violating law-enforcement protocols, and executing a federal agent rather than making an arrest.
The lawsuit states that friends, family members, and colleagues have approached Smith and Santana since the film's release to ask which character each of them was and how much money they kept from the raid.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorney fees, as well as a public retraction and a prominent disclaimer added to the film. Court filings do not specify a dollar amount.
The studio's defence
Leita Walker, an attorney for Artists Equity, declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press. But in a 19 March 2026 response to a demand letter sent by the plaintiffs in December 2025, Walker wrote that the film 'does not purport to tell the true story' of the 2016 incident and that its disclaimer explicitly states it does not portray real people.
Walker also noted that the plaintiffs had not identified which character was supposed to be Smith or Santana, arguing that even if the film were about a real narcotics team, there was 'no way to connect any of the characters to the plaintiffs.'
The legal landscape
Entertainment lawyers who have reviewed the filing say the officers face a steep climb. Laura Lee Prather, media law chair at the firm Haynes Boone, told Star Magazine that the studios will likely move to dismiss on multiple fronts: that the officers are not identifiable in the film, that the work is fiction, and that the plaintiffs are limited-purpose public figures who cannot plausibly allege actual malice.
Prather said a court would apply 'an objective, totality-of-the-circumstances test' to determine whether the officers are identifiable. 'The more differences between the officers and the characters, the less likely a reasonable viewer would associate the officers with the characters,' she said. She added that the studios could seek dismissal under Florida's anti-SLAPP statute, which offers expedited hearings, the right to an interlocutory appeal, and attorney fees for claims arising from motion pictures.
Disclaimers, Prather cautioned, 'are not determinative.' She noted that creators typically alter names, change important details, and add fictional plot elements to insulate themselves, but 'no single safeguard is dispositive. The line between inspired by and actionable turns on a variety of factors.'
The case, filed as Jason Smith et al. v. Falco Pictures, LLC et al., is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. As of late May, no hearing date had been set.