Netflix's latest gripping crime drama to hit our screens is here and Legends is actually based on a largely untold real-life story too.
Written by Neil Forsyth, Legends stars Tom Burke (Black Bag), Steve Coogan (The Penguin Lessons) and Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake).
The six-part TV series sees Burke take on the role of Guy Stanton, Coogan as Don and Squires as Kate - the characters very much based on real life people.
But what were they known for? And why is their story only now being told?
Is Legends based on a true story?
Yes, the Netflix series is indeed based on a true story - or more, the stories of a group of British Customs staff. And this seemingly ordinary team of people working for the customs office certainly weren't like any other.
Legends is inspired by what happened in the early 1990s when Her Majesty's Customs and Excise launched a secret operation sending a group of customs officers undercover. Why? Drug trafficking was at an all-time high, heroin was flowing into the country at an alarming rate, and someone needed to try to combat it.
However, rather than looking to the police for help, HM Customs and Excise thought out-the-box, turning to customs staff who didn't have extensive training, giving them new identities and sending them undercover to try and bring down the drug smuggling operations once and for all.
Reflecting on the tough decision the group had to make before taking on the undercover assignment, Forsyth told Netflix: "[The team are] from working-class backgrounds without any kind of financial support – they’re trapped. They can see how the next 30 years are going to play out for them, and they don’t really fancy it, but they’re not in a position to go down a different route. And suddenly, they have this opportunity to do something different that satisfies a lot of their personal motivations and hopes and dreams, but with it comes an enormous danger."
But embark on the challenge they did and Forsyth even hunted the real-life people down himself to meet them in a bid to learn more about their experiences.
The writer said he "spent a month or two meeting" them and "gaining their trust a little bit" to learn more about what happened in the 90s.
He admitted: "For most people, including myself, knowledge of customs officers is the people that check your suitcases at the airport. It’s incredible to know that world even existed."
Forsyth learned about the "pressure" and how the team "could never relax" in their secret mission to "stop an influx of heroin that was killing hundreds a week".
And while he reflected on them being "really charged up by personal ambition and the wish for excitement," ultimately it was the "moral" pull of the undercover assignment which fuelled them. Although, the "mistake" many made was thinking they "could go undercover, knock off at 5pm and go home".
"It became so blurred that it had a real impact on them and their families. For some it was seismic," Forsyth said.
And this was a life the Legends lived for around 11 years - the real Guy Stanton having opened up about his experiences in his memoir The Betrayer: How An Undercover Unit Infiltrated The Global Drug Trade - the book inspiring Forsyth's Netflix series.
The moral and personal dedication of the group is what Netflix's Legends brings awareness too, the series' creator adding what brings him "most satisfaction is that Guy felt we'd captured what it did to him psychologically".
Forsyth resolved: "I’ve written shows in the past that are about well-known events. You then tell the story behind it that isn’t so well known. This is unique, in that the work of the Legends is barely known at all…
"There was this core team of people that did all of this, and they did it almost without any public recognition."
You can catch Legends on Netflix on Thursday, 7th May.
