So What Are These “Valuables” That Gangs of Men Are Supposedly Searching for in New York City’s Sewers?
There must be something good down there, if people are willing to brave the rats, e. coli and "scald burns."
Splinter new york city
The New York City sewer system is classically associated with a few indelible images. Clouds of steam and fetid smells wafting up to street level. Masked turtle vigilantes, subhuman CHUDs, mythical alligators and millions upon millions of rats scurrying below. Manhole covers dotting every street in the vast grid that is NYC. A river of mood slime, at least in Ghostbusters II. But the prospect of treasure? Not so much.
And yet, to listen to reporting on the odd spate of incidents in which mysterious men have been seen coming and going from the sewer system in New York in the last month, the police seem to be of the opinion that someone thinks there’s something valuable to be gained in groups of dudes breaching the sewers who are “up to no good,” in the words of one random public observer. What that could be, I have absolutely no idea.
According to NBC News, though, a “senior law enforcement official” said that police are pursuing the primary theory that members of the group are “scouring the system for valuables that get into the sewage.” They add that “The NYPD, to make sure there was not a threat to the public, sent their highly trained Emergency Services Unit officers into the sewer system to make sure nothing nefarious had been left behind by the individuals — nothing was found. And the city Environmental Protection Department, which manages the system, also went in and apparently found no damage to the sewer system equipment.”
Mystery men who are “up to no good” have been roaming New York City’s vast sewer system, and city officials warn potential copycats of dangers they’d face exploring the underground.
— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) 2:00 PM · Jun 2, 2026
In what way, exactly, are “valuables” getting into the literal sewage, and how would a group of men armed with shovels and headlamps like they’re descending into a West Virginia coal chute be able to locate and retrieve those valuables amid a river of human waste, rats and e. coli? Are there a lot of New Yorkers out there flushing diamond pendants, bearer bonds, or mylar-wrapped issues of Action Comics #1? Drugs, sure, I can imagine those being occasionally flushed by a spooked user from time to time, but I don’t think they’ll be of much use after being somehow located–not in the same sewers that once dissolved Jason Voorhees in the rousing conclusion to Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. If anything, I would imagine the only “valuable” thing one might somehow locate in the sewers would be sewer equipment, copper wire or parts that are somehow dismantled and brought back up, but the police specifically called out “valuables that get into the sewage,” which is a line so loony it feels like something out a dream.
That said, it’s not difficult to imagine why the city doesn’t exactly want people down there. It’s also probably admittedly rather difficult to keep people out of there if they’re absolutely determined, given the roughly 500,000 manholes that dot the city. Today, city officials offered up a warning to potential copycat criminals of the various dangers and potentially deadly hazards one might face in the sewer system in addition to the hopefully obvious legal jeopardy of trespassing and stealing shit.
“Entering the sewer system is both illegal and extremely dangerous,” said a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection in a statement to media. “Sewers can contain numerous hazards, including noxious and potentially deadly gases, unstable surfaces, flooding risks, and confined spaces. For these reasons, members of the public should never enter a pipe, drain, catch basin, manhole, or outfall.”
😭
— jon ben-menachem (@jbenmenachem.com) 10:20 AM · Jun 2, 2026
Recent local news in New York could scarcely have provided a more glaringly obvious example of why this is an ill-conceived plan. It was only a few weeks ago when a 56-year-old woman named Donike Gocaj stepped out of her car after parking in midtown Manhattan and proceeded to fall straight into the sewer through a manhole cover that had been accidentally dislodged by a passing truck. She suffered what sounds like a truly agonizing death, via “scald burns with inhalation thermal injury and blunt force trauma of the torso,” according to the subsequent autopsy. One would naturally think that a wrongful death lawsuit from the family would follow.
“Our condolences are with the family of the woman who lost her life in this devastating incident,” said the Mayor’s Office in a statement at the time. “City agencies are working with Con Ed to support the emergency response and conduct a full investigation into what occurred. Every question must be asked and answered so that no New Yorker experiences a tragedy like this again.”
Why do I get the feeling, as someone who has spent some time writing about the conspiracy fringe, that the online conspiracy mill may have played a role in all of this? Is there some YouTuber or TikToker out there who has been spreading rumors of a vast fortune in the New York sewers, hidden among the decaying chopped cheese wrappers? Even if this inciting person does not exist, I’m absolutely certain that someone is currently cooking up a grand conspiracy about the sewer explorers themselves, asserting that they’re Mossad agents, or Reptilians, or part of some nefarious, subterranean Democratic vote-swapping brigade, when the most likely outcome is of course that they’re probably the absolute dumbest criminals you’ve ever heard of.
Whatever “valuables” a group of guys might imagine they will discover by venturing down one of those manhole covers, though, I hope they’re lucrative enough to offset the “scald burn” injuries they receive along the way. Otherwise, the whole adventure would be pointless! And we’d hate to see that.
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