Two Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office narcotics officers sued the production companies of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon this week, claiming the actors’ blockbuster Netflix film The Rip defamed them by fictionalizing their record-breaking 2016 drug bust into a story about corrupt, murderous cops — and then ignoring warnings to stop.
Officers Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana filed the complaint in Florida federal court, targeting Artists Equity, the production company Affleck and Damon founded in 2022, and Falco Productions, their one-off LLC for the project. The lawsuit alleges defamation per se, defamation by implication, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Netflix, which streamed the film from January 16, is not named as a defendant and declined to comment.
The real case at the heart of the dispute was the largest cash seizure in Miami-Dade Police Department history: $21,970,411 discovered in orange buckets hidden behind drywall in a Miami Lakes home on June 29, 2016, with Santana as lead detective and Smith supervising. The Rip, which opens with the phrase “inspired by true events,” draws on these specific facts but layers in fabricated plotlines — officers plotting to steal seized cash, lying to suspects, communicating with cartel members, and, in one scene, Affleck’s character killing a DEA agent.
Neither officer appears by name in the film; Affleck plays Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne, Damon plays Lieutenant Dane Dumars. The lawsuit argues the combination of precise case details, Miami-Dade setting, and narcotics context makes the real officers unmistakably identifiable.
The damage, Santana says, has been immediate. “When you rip something, you’re stealing something,” he told a Miami TV station. “We never stole a dollar.” The complaint states that colleagues, family members, and even prosecutors have approached both men since the film’s release asking which character they were and “how many buckets they kept.”
The officers sent a cease-and-desist in December 2025, before the film’s debut, objecting to its trailer. After release, Affleck and Damon’s representatives responded that concerns were “unfounded” since the film never named the officers. The complaint also reveals that a Miami-Dade officer who consulted on the film subsequently contacted Smith and Santana on behalf of director Joe Carnahan to apologize.
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The plaintiffs want compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees, a public retraction, and a prominent disclaimer added to the film. Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo and the city’s police chief had already called The Rip a “slap in the face” to their department when it dropped in January, signaling that resentment over the film runs well beyond two individual officers.
