A former Dutch drug lord is suing Netflix for “significant emotional, reputational, and financial damage” over the streaming giant’s Undercover and Ferry series.
Adrianus van Wesenbeeck filed a federal lawsuit against Netflix on Tuesday, claiming the streamer released four pieces of entertainment featuring characters inspired by him, which he says are inaccurate depictions that have “inflicted significant emotional, reputational and financial damage,” according to a report by TheWrap.
The content in question involves Netflix’s 2019 television series Undercover, its 2021 film Ferry, the streamer’s 2023 show Ferry: The Series, and its 2024 film Ferry 2.
The former drug lord reportedly claims the TV shows and film depict him as a “brutal serial killer” via their characters, who he says are based on him.
Van Wesenbeeck, who is also known as Janus, is suing Netflix for defamation, copyright infringement, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violation of the right of publicity.
While the lawsuit acknowledges that Netflix has never explicitly referred to the shows and film as loose adaptations of Van Wesenbeeck’s life, it states that the actors portraying these roles have told the press that they are.
Moreover, the film and two series have been widely reported on as depictions of the former drug lord’s life, the complaint adds.
“This deliberate and misleading presentations has caused significant harm by blurring the line between fiction and reality and falsely associating the Plaintiff with the character of Ferry Bouman,” the lawsuit reads.
The complaint goes on to claim that Ferry 2 used copyrighted material from Van Wesenbeeck’s book “Drugsbaron,” and that a promotional song for the Ferry film “refers to Mr. Van Wesenbeeck and his late wife, Lydia, in a demeaning and mocking way.”
While Van Wesenbeeck was never charged with murder or human trafficking, he is “notoriously known as a major drug trafficker at an international scale,” TheWrap noted.
In 2011 and 2012, Van Wesenbeeck was sentenced to 14 years in a Belgium prison for drug trafficking, participating in a criminal organization, and money laundering — but was granted early release in 2015.
Van Wesenbeeck’s lawsuit reportedly seeks more than $26 million in actual damages, over $50 million for compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages exceeding $50 million, and profit recovery from the Ferry franchise and Undercover series, estimated to be over $166 million.
The Ferry franchise — eponymously named for the lead fictional character, Ferry Bouman — follows Bouman, who becomes “a notorious drug lord” and rises “from obscurity by ascending the ranks of Brabant’s criminal underbelly” in the show, according to its IMDb page.
In the first film, Bouman is described as a “ruthless” individual who “is sent to his native region of Brabant by his boss Brink to avenge an attack on their gang,” at which point “he meets lovely Danielle and old family feuds resurface,” the IMDB page states.
The second Ferry movie follows Bouman “after losing his drug empire” and seeming “to have found peace away from Brabant’s underworld,” according to the film’s IMDb page.
“Not all the stories Bouman encountered in the five years of the franchise were based directly on Van Wesenbeeck’s own experiences,” TheWrap reported.
Netflix’s Undercover series, meanwhile, consists of three seasons, which premiered in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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