Matt Damon and Ben Affleck sued by Miami police officers who inspired ‘The Rip’
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are being sued by the two Miami police officers who inspired their 2026 Netflix movie, The Rip.
The film, which arrived on Netflix in January, notes at the start of the movie that it is “inspired by true events”, related to a narcotics raid in 2016 carried out by the Miami-Dade Police Department.
In the 2016 raid, they discovered $24 million in laundered money during a raid, which made international headlines at the time.
Per Entertainment Weekly, who have obtained the legal filing against Affleck and Damon’s studio Artists Equity, officers Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana claim it has done “substantial harm to their personal and professional reputations”, despite not being named directly in the movie.
The two officers claim the film implies “misconduct, poor judgment, and unethical behavior in connection with a real law enforcement operation.”
Santana and Smith add in the lawsuit, “The film’s use of unique, non-generic details of the June 29, 2016, investigation, combined with its Miami-Dade setting and portrayal of a narcotics team, creates a reasonable inference that the officers depicted are Plaintiffs.”
They also hit out at The Rip for claiming to be “inspired by true events,” stating, “the fact that a large seizure occurred, the events portrayed in the film did not happen.”
The pair say that due to the movie, they have been accused of seizing funds “to complete personal property improvements, purchase vehicles and vessels, and afford private schooling for their children” from family members.
Those comments have led the attorneys to argue “that viewers are associating the Miami-Dade Police Department and Plaintiffs with the corrupt portrayals in The Rip.”
It also alleges that Smith and Santana’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter in December 2025, a bid to prevent the movie from being released.
However, they did not allegedly hear back until after the film arrived on Netflix, when they were told their “concerns are unfounded because the film did not expressly name Sergeant Smith and there was no implication that the Plaintiffs engaged in any misconduct in the film.”
The two officers are demanding “a public retraction and correction,” including “the addition of a prominent disclaimer” to The Rip, as well as compensation, punitive damages, and attorney fees.
Affleck and Damon’s studio Equity Artists are yet to respond to the lawsuit.
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