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South Florida officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, claiming details in ‘The Rip’ are too real

The officers say the film borrowed unique details from a $24 million raid and falsely implied they were corrupt, damaging their reputations.

  • On Tuesday, Miami-Dade officers Jonathan Santana and Jason Smith sued Artists Equity and Falco Pictures for defamation, alleging the Netflix thriller "The Rip" falsely portrays them as corrupt.
  • The film claims to be "inspired by true events," borrowing from the officers' 2016 Miami-Dade raid where they lawfully discovered $21,970,411 in cash hidden behind a false wall.
  • Plaintiffs allege "The Rip" added fabricated plotlines involving theft and murder, causing reputational harm that led colleagues to mock Santana by asking how many buckets he kept.
  • The officers warned filmmakers before the movie's release, sending a cease-and-desist letter in December 2025; Netflix, which is not named as a defendant, has not responded to requests for comment.
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Two American agents have filed a lawsuit against Artists Equity, the production company of actors and friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The agents are calling it defamation. They claim that the Netflix thriller 'The Rip' bears too many similarities to a case they worked on.

·Antwerp, Belgium
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Jyllands-PostenJyllands-Posten
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Two police officers from the southern part of the US state of Florida have sued actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for using too many details from real life in their new action thriller...

·Aarhus, Denmark
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Two American police officers have sued actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for defamation because their film The Rip allegedly bears too much resemblance to a case they worked on in real life. The officers are therefore demanding damages and a retraction. In the film, which was also produced by the actors, Damon and Affleck play two drug agents who stumble upon a large amount of cash in a storage facility in southern Florida. This causes unrest wi…

·Netherlands (Kingdom of the)
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TMZ broke the news in Los Angeles, United States on Friday, May 8, 2026.
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