Police have hinted the scores of people who emerged from under New York’s streets last week could be scavengers on the hunt for gold in the city’s sewage system
A mysterious group of “mole people” have been spotted exiting New York’s manholes. Last Friday (May 29) troops of people were seen emerging from covers across Brooklyn. Police have hinted that these subterranean explorers could be scavengers looking for discarded belongings of high value, although there has not ever been any confirmation of this.
The constant threat of arrest and clear dangers to personal safety seemingly pose no obstacle for these underground folk, with countless such incidents grabbing the city’s headlines throughout the years.
In 2015 part-time city Department of Environmental Protection employee Marquis Evans guided two men down a Brooklyn manhole seeking “gold, jewelry and guns” in city sewers, police revealed.
Authorities eventually tracked down Evans and his companions Damien Nieves and David Hannibal. They faced criminal trespassing charges after officers spent four hours hunting for them.
“God knows what they were looking for,” then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton remarked 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.”
In 2025, a different trio faced arrest for venturing into the Brooklyn sewers. One of the men, Willer Green, told officers: “The reason we went down there is that people lose their gold down there. We got to sell it to make money.”
The fascination with sewers has seemingly always existed – a series of New York Times articles from the 1800s reported tales of jewels being retrieved from their depths, while stories of criminals discarding drugs and other contraband into storm drains have populated films and crime narratives over the years.
Following the 2015 incident, former Commissioner Bratton stated there was little that could be done to deter reckless individuals from lifting the city’s nearly 200-pound manhole covers and venturing into the perilous tunnels beneath.
“Entering a sewer without proper authorisation and training is illegal, incredibly irresponsible and dangerous,” he said at the time, according to the Times. “The reality is we cannot be everywhere protecting everything from everybody.”
No arrests have been made in the recent series of Brooklyn sewer treasure hunters, where separate groups of men were spotted emerging from two manhole covers in Gravesend and Williamsburg.
Footage from the Gravesend incident obtained by Flatbush Scoop showed a man prying back a manhole cover from McDonald Avenue around 2am and hiding it between nearby cars – when seven men proceeded to emerge from the ground one after another.