NYC manhole mole people have plundered sewer for lost treasures for decades

Treasures abound beneath city streets for anyone brave or crazy enough to explore the murky depths of the Big Apple’s sprawling 7,500-mile sewer system — all in search of a wayward wallet or piece of jewelry that may have fallen through a grate above.Those temptations were put on full display last week by two separate incidents caught on camera Friday night, where troops of people were seen emerging from manhole covers across Brooklyn after sneaking around the steamy depths in what police said were likely scavenging operations.The ever-present threat of arrest and obvious risks to personal safety are apparently no deterrent for these intrepid subterranean explorers — for whom no gemstone is too grimy and no coin too crud-covered to add to their loot pouches — with numerous such incidents capturing the city’s attention over the years.One happening made headlines In 2015, when part time city Department of Environmental Protection worker Marquis Evans, then 21, led two pals down a Brooklyn manhole in search of “gold, jewelry and guns” in city sewers, cops said at the time.The trio took several such belowground “scavenger hunt” excursions before the law caught up with Evans and his friends Damien Nieves and David Hannibal.They were slapped with criminal trespassing charges after spending four hours searching for them.“God knows what they were looking for,” then-police Commissioner Bill Bratton said following the arrests.“I know damn sure I wouldn’t be crawling through the sewers of New York, but these three evidently were up to something down there.”A decade later, the allure of scooping up lost valuables was also the motivation for a different threesome who were arrested for descending into the Brooklyn sewers in April 2025.One of the men, Willer Green told police at the time, “The reason we went down there is that people lose their gold down there.

We got to sell it to make money.”And the allure of the sewers has apparently always been...