A bystander dialed 911 after spotting three men climbing out of a Brooklyn manhole before dawn on Friday, police said.
The caller reported the group emerging from the steamy pit at Bay Ridge Parkway and 17th Avenue in Bensonhurst around 4:30 a.m., according to authorities. Officers arrived to find the men, who were wearing bright clothing, already gone. No arrests were made and the investigation remains open.
The Friday sighting marks the latest in a strange wave of sewer-diving incidents across New York City this year. Elusive figures dubbed “mole people” have been spotted popping out of manholes in Middle Village, Queens, Williamsburg and Gravesend in Brooklyn, and near Manhattan’s Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.
Just two days before the Bensonhurst report, three men carried out a pre-dawn sewer escapade steps from the Upper East Side’s Loews Regency New York Hotel, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other dignitaries were staying during the UN General Assembly.
Police arrested Kevin Rodriguez, 26, and Samuel Reveron, 25, both Queens residents and Venezuelan citizens, in connection with that Wednesday incident. A federal law-enforcement source briefed on the matter said neither suspect appeared to have had malicious intent or posed any threat to the visiting dignitaries.
Reveron explained the group’s motive during questioning, prosecutors said Friday. “We go into the sewers to look for valuables that go into the sewer drains,” he allegedly told a police officer, specifying that they hoped to find “gold,” according to prosecutors.
The two arrests near the UN gathering stand out from the broader pattern of unexplained manhole appearances, which have drawn police attention without always yielding suspects or clear motives. Authorities have not established whether the Bensonhurst trio connects to any prior incidents.
The sewer-diving phenomenon has persisted across multiple boroughs with no single narrative tying the cases together. Some appearances involve individuals or small groups surfacing unexpectedly; others, like the Regency Hotel incident, have resulted in criminal charges.
Police have not specified what valuables, if any, Rodriguez and Reveron recovered from their underground search. The gold-seeking explanation offers one window into a broader pattern that has otherwise left investigators with limited information about who is entering the city’s sewer system and why.
Whether Friday’s bright-clothed trio in Bensonhurst shared the same financial motive, or were even the same individuals spotted elsewhere, remains unknown. Authorities said it was not immediately clear whether they were connected to any of the previous manhole incursions across the city.
The investigation into the Bay Ridge Parkway incident continues.