A video from Wakefield has added a Bronx address to a series of reported New York manhole incidents. Footage obtained by News 12 shows three men emerging from a manhole in front of 2010 Nereid Ave. shortly after 5 a.m. on October 1, then walking away.
What the Footage Shows
According to News 12, the NYPD has a criminal trespass report on file tied to the Wakefield sighting, though no arrests have been made in that specific incident. Neighbors who watched the video said the scene left them unsettled. Wakefield resident Jorge called the situation “weird,” while fellow resident Kayla said it looked “nasty.”
Jorge told News 12 he was concerned about possible disease exposure underground. The outlet also spoke with Stanley, a plumber who has worked in the trade for 30 years, about how buildings connect to the main sewer line beneath the street and how waste settles there over time.
A Pattern NYPD Has Now Named
Police say people enter sewers after storms to search for valuables and scrap metal. The Guardian describes an apparent pattern of people seeking valuables. Officials describe post-storm sewer foraging as a persistent urban phenomenon rather than a one-off incident, and the Wakefield footage is only the latest entry in a run of similar sightings stretching back months.
Eight days after the Bronx video, NYPD and DEP crews responded to East 82nd Street and East End Avenue on the Upper East Side after five people emerged from a manhole around 2:10 a.m. on October 9, recovered two shovels and other tools, and fled in a black Chevrolet Suburban, CBS New York reported. In a separate report, Hoodline described a 911 caller reporting at least three men entering a manhole near West 141st Street and Hamilton Place early on October 11, but police found no one at the scene: Hamilton Heights manhole report.
Arrests, Bail and a Federal Pickup
In late September, NYPD detectives arrested Queens men Samuel Reveron, 25, and Kevin Rodriguez, 26, on charges of criminal trespass and conspiracy after tracking them from a Manhattan manhole, The Guardian reported. According to the report, Reveron told police the pair had entered the sewer system to look for gold and other valuables.
The New York Post reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Reveron into custody in October after a Manhattan judge released him, citing an active federal immigration warrant tied to his status as a Venezuelan national with unresolved criminal charges: The New York Post.
. The outlet noted that New York City's sanctuary city policies restricted local police from coordinating with federal immigration authorities ahead of the arrest.
From Counterterrorism Scare to Urban Legend
Before investigators settled on gold-hunting as a possible explanation, one Manhattan sighting prompted a high-level security response. On September 23, three men emerged from a manhole on Park Avenue near East 61st Street, near hotels and UN-related security during the 81st United Nations General Assembly. The NYPD and U.S. Secret Service responded, as Hoodline detailed in its coverage of the UN security scare.
The reports date back at least to late May, when surveillance footage showed separate groups with waders, tools and flashlights entering and exiting manholes in Williamsburg near Heyward Street and in Gravesend along McDonald Avenue. Some groups reportedly stayed underground for up to three hours before emerging and changing clothes on public sidewalks, according to the Guardian. In August, three people were seen climbing out of a manhole across from Penn Station around 4 a.m. on August 18, an incident Hoodline covered when three waders climbed out of a manhole.
Sewer entry in New York has precedents beyond the recent sightings. The Guardian reported that a New York Department of Environmental Protection trainee was arrested after being caught in a sewer in 2015; that report does not establish a gold-hunting motive. The outlet also reported that three men were charged with burglary in 2025 after entering a Brooklyn sewer in search of lost gold. The Guardian reported little evidence that sewer foraging is lucrative, quoting an explorer who said his most valuable find was an expired credit card.
The Real Danger Underground
Whatever the men are finding, the risk to their safety is not in dispute. New York City's sewer network spans more than 7,400 miles of underground pipes, and roughly 60% of the system relies on combined sewers carrying both raw sewage and stormwater through a single pipe, according to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. DEP and occupational safety agencies warn that unauthorized sewer entry exposes people to lethal concentrations of hydrogen sulfide gas, explosive methane, rapid oxygen depletion, and sudden flash flooding during rainstorms, according to HowStuffWorks. Hydrogen sulfide is particularly treacherous because it paralyzes the sense of smell at dangerous concentrations, meaning someone can lose consciousness with no warning.
What the Reports Establish—and What They Don't
The OSHA guidance cited above describes a confined-space hazard; it does not set out New York City sewer-entry authorization requirements or show that the Wakefield men encountered hydrogen sulfide. Earlier cases provide context but do not establish that valuables were recovered: the Guardian’s previously cited reporting says the 2015 DEP trainee was caught in a sewer, without establishing a gold-hunting motive, and describes the 2025 Brooklyn case as an alleged search for gold. Separately, ABC News reported that police were looking for three people after an August 18 manhole emergence near Penn Station and that no arrests had been made in that incident at the time. These reports document separate incidents, but do not establish a formal NYPD declaration of a citywide pattern.
The legal exposure is real too. Under New York Penal Law, entering a public sewer line without authorization can bring charges ranging from simple trespass under Section 140.05, a non-criminal violation carrying up to 15 days in jail, up to Third-Degree Criminal Trespass under Section 140.10, a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a permanent criminal record, per the New York State Senate.
For now, no arrests have followed the Wakefield sighting, and the men caught on camera walking away from the Nereid Avenue manhole remain unidentified. As Jorge put it to News 12, the whole scene still just feels weird to the people who live there — one more chapter in a sewer mystery that has puzzled New Yorkers for months.
