Netflix series from the creator of The Gold

Steve Coogan and Ghosts star Charlotte Ritchie have joined the cast of a new Netflix series based on a real-life an undercover customs operation.

Legends will also feature Strike star  Tom Burke and  I, Daniel Blake’s Hayley Squires and revolves around an audacious plan to infiltrate Britain’s most dangerous drug gangs in the 1990s.

The six-part series has been written by Neil Forsyth, who created The Gold for the BBC about a different heist, and which starred Dominic Cooper and Jack Lowden.  

Forsyth previously created the comedy character Bob Servant, as played by  Brian Cox, and  penned Eric, Ernie and Me, a one-off drama about Morecambe and Wise from the point of view of their writer Eddie Braben.

The Netflix logline for the show reads: ‘In the early ’90s, her Majesty’s Customs and Excise was losing its battle with illegal drug smuggling across Britain’s borders. The solution was extraordinary. In a top-secret operation, a small team of Customs employees were sent undercover. Their task — to infiltrate Britain’s most dangerous drug gangs.

‘But these were not trained spies. They were normal men and women, plucked from ordinary lives around the UK, put through a basic training regime, and tasked with building new identities in the criminal underworld. These identities were called legends.’

Legends does not yet have a release date.

Published: 19 Mar 2025