Attorneys for reputed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman are threatening to sue Netflix and Univision if the two networks make good on a plan to air a new series about his life without compensating him.

Andres Granados insists the two networks are obligated to pay his client for the use of his name and nickname in the series. Currently, Guzman is being held in a Mexican prison and facing extradition to the U.S. on a slew of federal drug trafficking charges.

"If they air this, they are immediately going to be sued," Granados recently told reporters. "They, by necessity, need the authorization of Mr. Guzman, because he is not dead."

El Chapo Might be Open to Deal

Granados later added at the right price his client "could supply more information to make it a better project for them."

The two networks recently announced plans to produce an original drama about El Chapo that could hit the airwaves by as soon as 2017. Univision recently released its first trailer for the project, which features a series of scenes representing different eras and aspects of Mexico sullied by overflow rivers of blood.

Meanwhile, U.S. authorities recently dropped as many as a dozen murder charges against "El Chapo" with little public mention.

U.S. Murder Charges Dropped

Word is federal prosecutors in New York removed the brutal acts from a list of formal charges filed against the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel leader as part of a plan they hope will prove easier to convict him.

Lawyers for Guzman are reported to be in the midst of fighting his extradition, while federal prosecutors from New York's eastern district are rumored to have won the right to prosecute him here after competing with rival cases in Chicago, San Diego and El Paso.

"It is a calculus that involves a lot of different issues, but what it boils down to at the end of day is: who's got the best charges and who's got the best evidence," said Theresa Van Vliet, a former chief of narcotics at the justice department. "It's as simple as that."

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