Derek Tsang reportedly attached to direct DEA true-crime series Group 41

Derek Tsang, the Hong Kong director of the Oscar-nominated Better Days and of episodes of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, is attached to direct and executive produce Group 41, a true-crime drama series about the first Asian-American squad at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Variety reported in an exclusive on 7 November. Jonah Greenberg’s Salty Pictures is presenting the 10-episode project at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) in Taipei, where it is looking for regional incentives and an Asian distribution route before it goes to US platforms next year.

For a period crime series that still has no showrunner, cast or buyer, Tsang is the first element a platform can put a value on. The Taipei stop tests whether Asian incentives and partners can carry part of the cost of a show set in New York.

Key facts

• Talent: Derek Tsang attached to direct and executive produce
• Format: 10 episodes of 45 minutes, opening in New York in 1986
• Source: The Incredible Story of D.E.A. Group 41 & The Rise and Fall of the Asian Heroin Trade, a 180-page nonfiction book by Greenberg, Marc Iserlis and Aidan Swift, due next year
• Producers: Salty Pictures (Greenberg); Taiwan’s Each Other Films as co-production partner, with co-founder Tiffany Yu-chia Chen as co-producer; Adam Berkowitz of Lenore Entertainment Group as executive producer
• Status: seven years in development; a writer-showrunner and possibly cast come next, before platform pitches in 2027

The story

The series opens in 1986, when the DEA’s attention in New York was fixed on Colombian cocaine cartels and the Mafia’s Five Families. A crew of Asian-American agents teams up with a hard-charging Irish prosecutor nicknamed “The Dragon Lady” and forms Group 41, the first squad to go after the No. 4 heroin entering the United States through a network few had noticed. Over the following decade the underfunded unit grows into an elite international task force.

Its targets, as the project describes them, include Johnny Kon, a Hong Kong boss whose triad spanned five continents; Johnny “Onionhead” Eng, a Chinatown gangster; and Khun Sa, a Golden Triangle warlord with a 20,000-strong narco-army. Immigration, prejudice and the cost of the American Dream run through the material, which tells its stories from both sides of the law.

Greenberg, a former managing director of CAA’s China office whose producing credits include Zhang Yimou’s Shadow, wrote the book with Iserlis and Swift, who are also producers and writers on the series. He says the team has the trust and cooperation of the real people involved. Part of the appeal, he told Variety, is the period itself: present-day police shows can be strong, but surveillance technology now gives officers the upper hand. “Back in the 1980s when you went undercover, you went deep,” he said.

He also argues that the cases were overlooked at the time, by the press and by the DEA itself. “It simply wasn’t considered as sexy to work Chinese cases in the 1980s,” Greenberg said, recalling an era of Miami Vice and Rudy Giuliani’s prosecutions of Italian mobsters. He calls it “the war on drugs we actually won but which no one knows about”, and sees room for several seasons across the 10-year saga, with Khun Sa held back as the final target.

Why Taipei

The TCCF stop is about money and routes to market rather than a sale. The producers want to learn how incentives in Taiwan and elsewhere in the region could offset the budget, and to explore distribution in Asia, so that production, financing and possibly distribution are lined up before they pitch to US platforms. Each Other Films gives the package a Taiwanese partner already in place. The festival, organised by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), runs 6–9 November at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.

The project lands in a week in which Taipei has been selling itself as a financing stop for international series. Chunghwa Telecom committed to 10 content investments at the same market, and Weta FX signed an AI pact with TAICCA.

What is not known

No platform, writer-showrunner or cast beyond Tsang has been announced. The budget, the cost per episode, the size of any Taiwan incentive and a production start date have not been disclosed. Nor have the producers said which parts of the series they hope to shoot in the region, which would decide what a local incentive is actually worth.

Our reading

Tsang solves the first problem of any development package: a director a buyer can price. Better Days earned Hong Kong an Oscar nomination for international feature, and 3 Body Problem shows he can work at streamer scale in English. Taking a US-set period series to Taipei before it has a showrunner is a financing-first strategy, an attempt to reach the platforms with part of the budget already covered by Asian money. Asian stories are travelling well on the streamers, as The Remarried Empress’s record launch on Disney+ and Hulu showed this week, but Group 41 is a different sell: an English-language American period drama with Asian-American leads, part-financed from Asia. Until a platform or a financed production window is named, this is an attachment and a market pitch. The next evidence is a showrunner hire, a cast attachment or a Taiwan incentive commitment with a figure on it.

Sources

• Variety (Naman Ramachandran), 7 November 2026. Exclusive – Derek Tsang attached to direct and executive produce Group 41; Salty Pictures / Jonah Greenberg; 10×45-min episodes; 1986 New York setting; source book with Marc Iserlis and Aidan Swift; Each Other Films (Tiffany Yu-chia Chen) co-production; Adam Berkowitz EP; seven years in development; seeking showrunner and cast before platform pitches next year; Taiwan incentive and Asia distribution talks at TCCF; Greenberg quotes on undercover era and overlooked Asian cases
• Taiwan Creative Content Agency / TCCF – festival dates 6–9 November 2026, Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center (organiser context)