New York City’s strange manhole mystery has finally produced an answer, at least in part. Two men have been arrested after police say they entered a sewer on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and later told investigators they were searching underground for valuables, including gold. The arrest follows months of surveillance footage showing people disappearing into and emerging from New York’s vast sewer network.

The latest incident unfolded near East 61st Street and Park Avenue, just blocks from the hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staying during the United Nations General Assembly.

What initially triggered a major security response now appears to have been connected to a far less clandestine motive: an underground hunt for valuables believed to have been washed into New York’s storm drains and sewers.

Kevin Rodriguez and Samuel Reveron, both from Queens, face trespassing and conspiracy charges in connection with the incident. They were released following their arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.

What happened inside the Manhattan sewer?

The incident began in the early hours of Wednesday near 535 Park Avenue at East 61st Street.

According to the criminal complaint and police accounts, a group entered the sewer system around 1:30 a.m. Surveillance footage later showed people emerging from the manhole several hours later before leaving the area in vehicles.

Police used surveillance footage and license-plate information to trace the vehicles as they crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Queens. Investigators subsequently identified Rodriguez and Reveron.

The two men were eventually arrested and charged with trespassing and conspiracy.

Authorities were still looking for additional people believed to have been part of the group. NBC New York reported that at least one other person seen emerging from the manhole had not been identified at the time of its report.

‘We look for gold’: What police say the men told investigators

The arrests became particularly unusual because of what investigators say the suspects told them about their reason for going underground.

According to the criminal complaint reported by Gothamist and other outlets, the men said they were looking for gold and other valuables that could have been carried into storm drains and sewers.

That explanation offers a possible answer to one of New York’s strangest urban mysteries of 2026.

Since May, people have repeatedly been filmed entering or emerging from maintenance holes across Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Some appeared to be wearing headlamps and carrying equipment, adding to speculation online about what they were doing beneath the city.

Police had already indicated that some of these cases appeared to involve people searching for valuables or scrap metal rather than any organized threat.

Why the Netanyahu connection triggered a major response

The location of the latest incident made it considerably more sensitive.

The manhole was near the hotel where Netanyahu was staying during the UN General Assembly. That proximity prompted the NYPD and federal law-enforcement agencies to conduct additional sweeps of the surrounding area.

The response was described as a precaution because of the timing, location and heightened security environment surrounding the UN meetings.

Authorities did not report finding anything suspicious during those sweeps.

Police also said the incident appeared to fit the same general pattern as previous cases involving people entering New York’s underground infrastructure in search of valuables or scrap material.

That distinction matters. Although the sighting occurred close to a location associated with a heavily protected foreign leader, authorities have not publicly said the men were targeting Netanyahu, the hotel or any UN-related operation.

The ‘mole people’ sightings go back months

The latest arrests are part of a much larger series of bizarre incidents.

In May, surveillance cameras captured groups of people entering and exiting manholes in Brooklyn. Videos showed people climbing out in the middle of city streets, sometimes carrying tools and wearing headlamps.

Another series of sightings followed during the summer.

People were recorded emerging from manholes near Penn Station and elsewhere in Manhattan, while similar activity was reported in Brooklyn and Queens.

The repeated appearances led to the unofficial nickname “mole people,” although there is no evidence that these individuals form one secretive underground organization.

The city’s sewer network is enormous, stretching about 7,400 miles, and portions of it date back more than a century. Police and city officials have stressed that entering the system without authorization is both illegal and dangerous.

Is there really gold hidden beneath New York?

That is where the story becomes less straightforward.

The idea that New York’s sewer system contains large quantities of forgotten treasure may sound like the beginning of an urban legend. And experts familiar with the city’s underground passages have questioned whether searching the sewers for riches makes much practical sense.

Former urban explorer Steve Duncan, who spent years exploring underground New York, said he had made more than 100 trips into the city’s subterranean infrastructure.

His discoveries were considerably less glamorous than gold.

Duncan has said the most valuable item he found was an expired credit card, while emphasizing that people entering the sewer system face far more serious hazards than the prospect of finding or not finding valuables.

The danger is not merely getting dirty.

Sewers are confined environments where flooding, contaminated water, toxic gases and oxygen-deficient conditions can create potentially fatal situations. Anyone entering the system without proper equipment and training can face risks that are difficult to see until it is too late.

What could actually be attracting sewer divers?

The new arrests suggest that at least some people may genuinely believe there are valuable objects waiting below street level.

Storm drains can carry objects away from the streets and into underground infrastructure. Jewelry, metal objects and other small possessions can theoretically be swept into drainage systems after heavy rainfall.

But that does not mean the city’s sewers are an underground treasure vault.

New York’s sewer explorers have historically been motivated by different things, including curiosity, urban history and the attraction of seeing parts of the city that are normally hidden from public view.

Duncan has described the underground environment as something that requires significant preparation and skill, suggesting that the people appearing in surveillance videos may know considerably more about navigating the system than their brief appearances above ground reveal.

A bizarre mystery with a surprisingly mundane explanation

For months, the images of people disappearing beneath New York streets invited almost every possible explanation.

Were they urban explorers? Scrap-metal scavengers? Treasure hunters? Or something more sinister?

The latest arrests provide evidence for at least one answer.

According to prosecutors and police, two of the people connected to the Upper East Side incident said they were searching for valuables, including gold.

That does not necessarily explain every sewer-diving incident reported across New York in 2026. Investigators have not established that all of the groups seen in different boroughs are connected.

But it does turn down the temperature on one of the city’s strangest recent mysteries.

For now, there is no publicly disclosed evidence that the people emerging from New York’s manholes were part of an organized threat or an operation targeting the nearby dignitaries.

Instead, investigators appear to be dealing with something considerably more peculiar: people venturing into a dangerous underground world in the hope that the city’s drains have carried something valuable into their path.

Whether they actually find the gold is another question entirely.