Sightings of people popping in and out of New York’s subterranean sewer system this summer has had the city wondering what is going on.
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. — Two suspects have been arrested in a mysterious case that baffled investigators and New York City residents this summer as people popped in and out of the city’s vast subterranean sewer system.
Samuel Reveron, 25, and Kevin Rodriguez, 26, were each booked on two counts of trespassing, NBC News reported.
The pair were accused in the city’s latest incident in which men climbed out of the sewer system about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Manhattan, according to a criminal complaint. The manhole was near the hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to stay while he attended the U.N. General Assembly.
The two men “identified themselves as the individuals that entered the manhole,” according to the court document. They said that they had entered the manhole together to look for valuables that had been washed away down storm drains, the document said.
They haven’t been charged in any other sewer instance, but New York Police said that the incident “fits that same criteria” as previous cases, NBC News reported.
Security cameras recorded multiple nighttime instances earlier this summer where groups of people entered or exited sewer tunnels via maintenance holes on streets in Brooklyn and Queens.
In one instance in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a group of roughly seven people were recorded popping out of a maintenance hole. They wore headlamps and carried what appeared to be shovels and other tools. One narrowly missed getting run over by a vehicle as they pulled themselves out of the ground.
In another video, about seven people emerged from a maintenance hole around 2 a.m. on a quiet street in Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighborhood. They made their way to parked cars and pulled out fresh clothes to change into. Police said the group entered the sewers about 11 p.m., meaning they could have been underground for three hours.
In early May, three people dressed in waterproof hip waders and other protective gear pried open a maintenance hole cover and descended into the sewer on a street in Queens. The last person pulled the cover shut as approaching cars slowed to a stop.
Rob Wolejsza, the department’s spokesperson told the Associated Press in June that entering the sewers is not only illegal but “extremely dangerous.”
“Sewers can contain numerous hazards, including noxious and potentially deadly gases, unstable surfaces, flooding risks, and confined spaces,” Wolejsza said in a statement. “For these reasons, members of the public should never enter a pipe, drain, catch basin, manhole, or outfall.”
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