Two men arrested in Queens after allegedly emerging from a Manhattan tunnel have shed light on a summer-long fascination with New York City's sewers, where so-called "mole people" have been spotted lifting manhole covers and climbing underground.
Samuel Reveron and Kevin Rodriguez were apprehended after police tracked them down through video footage. The pair were allegedly seen entering the sewers with four other people, who have yet to be identified. Both were charged with criminal trespassing, but the reason they gave for their adventure has proved particularly fascinating.
"We go into the sewer and look for valuables that get stuck in the storm drains and sewers, gold, anything of value," Reveron, 25, reportedly told police after his arrest.
A pattern of misplaced ambition
The gang's quest fits an apparently misguided pattern of people thinking New York's sewers are paved with gold. Last year, three men were arrested after allegedly being seen emerging from a sewer in Brooklyn, one of them telling police: "The reason we went down there is that people lose their gold down there. We got to get it and sell it to make money."
Despite that vaulting ambition, there is little evidence that sewer foraging is a lucrative trade. Steve Duncan, a former urban explorer who has spent considerable time in New York's sewers and subway tunnels, told the New York Times that in more than 100 sewer trips, the most valuable thing he found was an expired credit card.
Continued exploration and pop culture comparisons
Still, the penchant for sewer exploration continues. In May this year, there were three separate reported incidents of people climbing down into sewers, two of which were captured on video. In footage of the first incident, three people, wearing dungaree-style hip waders and carrying flashlights, walk into the middle of the road in Astoria, Queens. They haul a circular manhole cover aside and descend into the darkness.
"Three random guys walking around in a strange suit. Open the sewer, go in like the Ninja Turtles," eyewitness Aki Jakupovic told NBC New York at the time. Jakupovic isn't the first to make the comparison to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a fictional group of human-turtle hybrids who live in the sewers across comics, cartoons, and films.
While there appears to have been an increase in sewer incidents this year, this isn't a new phenomenon. In 2015, a trainee at the New York department of environmental protection was arrested after being caught in the sewers, and last year three men were arrested after entering the sewer system in Brooklyn, allegedly in an attempt to find gold.
"God knows what they were looking for. I know for damn sure I wouldn't be crawling through the sewers of New York, but these three were evidently looking for something," then New York police commissioner Bill Bratton told journalists at the time.
UN coincidence and official warnings
Reveron and Rodriguez's September sojourn might have been written off as a bit of a hoot, but police were seemingly extra interested because it coincided with world leaders gathering at the UN, some staying at swanky hotels close to where the two men went underground. Brian Kennedy, an attorney for Reveron, dismissed those concerns when he spoke to NBC News.
"It seems like not much of a case," Kennedy told NBC News. "I understand that it is strange that it's alleged he went [into the sewer]. But there's no connection to the UN or the appearance of Netanyahu or any other kind of nefarious scheme."
It's both strange and dangerous, Rob Wolejsza, a spokesperson for New York's department of environmental protection, previously told the Guardian. Wolejsza said it was "both illegal and extremely dangerous" to go into the sewers, adding: "Sewers can contain numerous hazards, including noxious and potentially deadly gases, unstable surfaces, flooding risks and confined spaces. For these reasons, members of the public should never enter a pipe, drain, catch basin, manhole or outfall."
Whether people will listen remains to be seen. On the same day Reveron and Rodriguez were arrested, another three men were spotted climbing out of a sewer at 4.30am in Bensonhurst, south Brooklyn. ABC7NY reported that police found a shovel in the sewer, but the men got away.
