Simon Michaël, who is credited with the film's original idea, is a former police officer. Director Claude Zidi met him at a dinner at the Carlton hotel through their mutual friend Claude Barrois shortly after Michaël had left the police. As Michaël was talking about a project he was hoping to write, he pronounced the word "ripou", which immediately intrigued Zidi. Michaël explained that this was verlan slang (which consists in inverting words) of the word "pourri" (meaning rotten) which was used in the force to talk about corrupt cops. Zidi was instantly interested, thinking it would make a great title. Since the film's release and massive success, the term has become common in the French language and is listed in the dictionary.
One week after the film's release in France, 20th Century Fox bought the rights to produce an American remake of the film. The project was put into development, with Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman attached at various stages, but never made it to production.
The film was adapted into a board game in 1985 and an Atari ST/Amstrad CPC video game in 1987. A series of three novels written by Louis Simon were also published between 1985 and 1986, L'Embrouille ("The Dust-up"), L'Été des Ripoux ("The Dirts Cops' Summer") and Pas de Nuoc-mam pour les Ripoux ("No Nuoc-mam for the Dirty Cops").