Two men were arrested Thursday after crawling out of a Manhattan manhole near a hotel hosting world leaders during UN week, with one admitting they were hunting for gold in the sewers.
Kevin Rodriguez, 26, and Samuel Reveron, 25, both Venezuelan citizens, were apprehended near their Queens homes following the pre-dawn Wednesday incident on Park Avenue near East 61st Street, police and law-enforcement sources said. The pair were arraigned Friday in Manhattan court on trespass and conspiracy charges.
Reveron told a police officer exactly what they were doing underground. “We go into the sewers to look for valuables that go into the sewer drains,” he allegedly said, according to prosecutors. The admission came after the men were spotted around 4:35 a.m. Climbing out of the underground pit just steps from the Loews Regency New York on the Upper East Side.
Rodriguez, described by sources as particularly portly, has no prior arrests, police said. Reveron, who was driving without a license when picked up, was charged separately for that offense and has one previous arrest for criminal mischief in Queens, authorities and sources said. The two fled in two vehicles that headed north on Park Avenue after emerging from the manhole, police said.
A third suspect who was spotted with them has not been publicly identified or charged in connection with the incident.
The NYPD addressed the broader pattern in a statement. “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 department said. “This incident fits that same criteria, but out of an abundance of caution given the UN General Assembly and the sensitivity of the location, the NYPD is conducting additional security sweeps with our federal partners.”
A federal law-enforcement source briefed on the matter said that neither suspect appeared to have had malicious intent or posed any threat to the dignitaries staying at the hotel, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in town for the UN General Assembly. Both men are part of a larger pattern across the city where spelunkers search for precious metals below ground, the source said.
The strange shenanigans could end up shedding light on the motivations of mysterious “mole people” spotted popping out of sewers across the five boroughs in recent months. This year alone, the elusive underground dwellers were spotted emerging from manholes in Middle Village, Queens, Williamsburg and Gravesend in Brooklyn, and even near Manhattan’s bustling Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.
The incident unfolded during one of the most security-intensive weeks in New York, when the annual UN General Assembly brings dozens of world leaders and their delegations to Manhattan hotels and diplomatic residences. The timing prompted the additional security sweeps despite the apparent lack of any terror connection.
Both men are expected to return to court for the sewer case on Nov. 25.