Overview
- Surveillance video from Wantagh, Long Island, showed five people opening a manhole and descending into the sewer system on Aug. 27, and Nassau County police searched the drains but found no one inside.
- A separate social-media clip that the NYPD confirmed captured three people emerging from a manhole near West 31st Street and Seventh Avenue on Aug. 18, and that footage is under review by detectives.
- Authorities say similar episodes occurred in May in Brooklyn, where groups were seen entering and later emerging from manholes in Gravesend and Williamsburg.
- City agencies and police have not made any arrests and say investigations are active; officers are using patrol checks and review of surveillance footage to try to identify participants.
- The Department of Environmental Protection warned that sewers pose deadly risks such as toxic gases, flooding and confined-space hazards, and detectives have floated but not confirmed motives like scavenging or migrant involvement, which has raised community concern and questions about surveillance use.