More ‘mole men’ have been spotted descending into New York City’s sewers looking for valuables, this time in upper Manhattan, continuing a trend that’s captured the city’s curiosity over the past few months.
A trio of urban treasure hunters lifted the cover off a manhole at W. 141st St. near Amsterdam Ave., a residential block in Hamilton Heights, just after 12:50 a.m. on Sunday, police sources said.
A witness saw three men, one in a black shirt and red sweatpants, another in a white T-shirt and black pants, and the third dressed all in black, descend into the city’s sewer system, police sources told the Daily News. One of the men apparently re-emerged and took off in a silver vehicle nearby, the sources said.
Cops were investigating the scene Sunday.
Police believe the suspects are urban explorers looking for valuables that end up underground.
“We have seen a number of incidents over the past few months of individuals going into the sewer system to look for valuables and other scrap metal after a storm,” the NYPD said in a statement last month.
Sunday’s sighting comes just two days after a witness saw five would-be sewer spelunkers pop out of a manhole on E. 82nd St. near East End Ave. on the Upper East Side, shortly after 2 a.m. Friday.
A video shared on social media appears to show officers with the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit using a magnet to pull up two shovels the treasure hunters left behind.
Similar sightings across the city have made headlines, including in September, when three men were seen coming out of a manhole on Park Ave. near E. 61st St. on the Upper East Side, across the street from the hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu usually stays during the U.N. General Assembly.
Police arrested two of the men, Kevin Rodriguez, 26, and Samuel Reveron, 25, charging them with criminal trespass. Police believe the trio went underground a short time earlier through a subway access gate at E. 63rd St. and Fifth Ave.
Earlier last month, a man wearing a black-and-red bandana was spotted climbing out of a sewer in Queens before taking off in a vehicle with four other men.
And in August, a concert-goer waiting on line to see Olivia Dean at Madison Square Garden told the News he got cell-phone video of three men wearing overalls and headlamps pop out of a manhole at the southeast corner of W. 31st St. and Seventh Ave.
Police are also looking into the two May 29 incidents in Brooklyn – in one, about eight men were seen lifting a manhole cover and entering the sewer in Williamsburg around 1 a.m. near the corner of Bedford Ave. and Heyward St., cops said.
That same morning, video obtained by the Flatbush Scoop shows seven men climbing out of a manhole under the elevated F train tracks on McDonald Ave. near Colin Place in Gravesend shortly after 2 a.m.
An eighth man, already topside, exited a nearby parked car and walked toward the manhole, apparently alerting the men below that the coast was clear.