Matt Damon & Ben Affleck Sued Over Netflix’s The Rip

The real Miami cops behind Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Netflix thriller The Rip aren’t just frustrated — they’re suing. Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies Jonathan Santana and Jason Smith filed a federal defamation lawsuit this week against Artists Equity, the production company founded by Damon and Affleck, and co-producer Falco Pictures, alleging the film destroyed their reputations by depicting them as corrupt, cartel-connected officers who considered stealing millions in seized drug money.

“When you rip something, you’re stealing something,” Santana, the lead detective on the original 2016 bust, told NBC 7News Miami. “We never stole a dollar.”

Released in January and marketed as “inspired by true events,” The Rip is built around a real Miami-Dade narcotics investigation from June 29, 2016, in which officers discovered $21,970,411 in cash hidden inside orange buckets behind a false wall in a Miami Lakes home — the largest cash seizure in Miami-Dade Police Department history. Santana led the investigation. Smith supervised the operation. Writer-director Joe Carnahan has previously discussed the bust as the film’s foundation.

What the Lawsuit Actually Claims

The complaint, filed in Florida federal district court, alleges that The Rip didn’t just borrow the broad strokes of the case — it recreated specific, recognizable details while layering on fabricated storylines involving police corruption, theft schemes, direct cartel dealings, and murder. According to the suit, the film depicts officers discussing stealing seized cash, lying to suspects, concealing evidence from superiors, and being implicated in the killing of a fellow officer and a DEA agent.

Santana and Smith say anyone familiar with the real case could immediately connect them to the fictional characters played by Damon and Affleck. The lawsuit states that after the film and its trailer dropped, family members, colleagues, and even prosecutors approached the officers asking “which character they were” and — pointedly — “how many buckets they kept.”

Santana told 7 News Miami that while he was once celebrated for his work on the decade-old case, he’s now mocked by people “pretty much saying, you know, how many buckets of money did I steal?”

Their attorney, Ignacio Alvarez, didn’t mince words: “They portrayed police officers as dirty, they portrayed my clients as dirty. Now their reputations are hurt. My clients are now hurt for the rest of their lives with everybody perceives that they’re dirty.”

The suit seeks unspecified damages for defamation, defamation by implication, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

They Warned the Filmmakers — Twice

This wasn’t a surprise attack. According to the complaint, Santana and Smith sent a cease-and-desist letter in December 2025, objecting to the trailer and promotional materials before the film even hit Netflix. The warning apparently went unheeded.

There’s another detail that cuts deeper: the lawsuit alleges that a Miami-Dade officer who did consult on the film later reached out to the plaintiffs on behalf of director Carnahan to apologize — and to offer them consulting roles on a future project. The officers also argue they should have been brought in as consultants on The Rip itself, claiming producers instead used a different cop who they say had no involvement in the actual 2016 bust.

Artists Equity — which Damon and Affleck founded in 2022 with backing from RedBird Capital, with Affleck as CEO and Damon as chief creative officer — did not respond to requests for comment. Netflix, which is not named as a defendant in the suit, also did not respond.

This Isn’t the First Controversy the Film Stirred Up

While The Rip opens with a disclaimer that it’s “inspired by true events,” the film is set in Hialeah — a city northwest of Miami — rather than Miami Lakes where the real bust occurred. That geographic choice drew its own backlash at launch. Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo held a press conference after the film’s release to call it out directly.

“I know Hialeah has been the butt of the joke for a long time,” Calvo said at the time. “But that ends now. This movie is a slap in the face to our law enforcement personnel.”

The film stars Damon and Affleck as the lead officers on the drug raid, with the story pivoting to what happens to the team’s trust and alliances after they discover an enormous cache of cash. Teyana Taylor, Sasha Calle, Scott Adkins, and Steven Yeun round out the cast.

For Santana, the personal toll is the whole point. He was the one who cracked the case. He was the one who got praised for it. And now, nearly a decade later, that legacy is the thing people are asking him about — just not in the way he’d hoped.