Derek Tsang, the filmmaker behind 3 Body Problem and Better Days, has signed on to direct and executive produce a DEA true-crime series Group 41, a ten-episode drama from Jonah Greenberg’s Salty Pictures. The project is being presented at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest in Taipei, where Greenberg’s company is shopping the series to international partners.
Group 41 is built around a chapter of U.S. law enforcement history that has received little screen attention: the first Asian-American squad at the Drug Enforcement Administration. Each episode runs 45 minutes, and the story begins in New York in 1986, a moment when the DEA’s priorities were fixed on Colombian cocaine trafficking and the city’s five Mafia families.
A Squad Outside the Mainstream
In that environment, a small group of Asian-American agents takes shape. According to the show’s premise, these agents are considered scrappy rather than polished, and they operate far from the center of the agency’s attention. Their fortunes change when they join forces with a relentless Irish prosecutor known by the nickname “The Dragon Lady.” Together, they become DEA Group 41.
The squad’s target is the fourth-largest heroin supply entering the United States, moving through a trafficking network that few others had noticed. The series frames their work as an uphill investigation into a pipeline that had escaped the notice of larger, more established operations.
The pairing of the Asian-American agents and the prosecutor is central to the show’s setup. The source material describes the prosecutor as hard-charging, and the alliance appears to give the unit the leverage it needs to pursue a case that larger DEA efforts had overlooked.
Tsang's Expanding Portfolio
Tsang’s attachment gives the project a director with credits on both sides of the Pacific. Better Days brought him wide recognition, and 3 Body Problem placed him within a major international television production. Group 41 marks another step into serialized drama, this time with a true-crime foundation and an American setting.
As director and executive producer, Tsang will shape the series both behind the camera and at the production level. The ten-episode order and 45-minute episode length suggest a tightly structured season, with the 1986 New York setting providing the period backdrop for the squad’s formation and its first major investigation.
Salty Pictures and the Market Push
Jonah Greenberg, whose producing credits include Zhang Yimou’s Shadow, is producing through Salty Pictures. The company’s presence at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest in Taipei places Group 41 among the projects being pitched to buyers and collaborators during the market.
The series combines several commercial hooks: a true-crime label, a period New York setting, a DEA procedural framework and a cast of characters drawn from an Asian-American perspective. The premise also sets up a contrast between the squad’s modest resources and the scale of the heroin network it pursues.
Details on casting, a production start date and a broadcast or streaming home were not disclosed. What is clear is the creative team: Tsang directing and executive producing, Greenberg producing through Salty Pictures, and a ten-episode first season set to open in 1986 New York with DEA Group 41 on the trail of a heroin operation that others had missed.
