The moles want gold!
A chunky CHUD busted for allegedly diving into a Manhattan manhole may help solve the mystery behind the invasion of “mole people” spotted emerging from the city’s sewers in recent months.
Kevin Rodriguez, 26, and his fellow Venezuelan citizen Samuel Reveron, 25, were arrested in Queens Thursday after romping in the tunnels underneath a hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stayed for the United Nations General Assembly, cops and sources said.
But the pair weren’t spies or would-be terrorists – they were fishing for discarded or lost treasures in the city’s steamy depths, prosecutors said.
“We go into the sewer and look for valuables that get stuck in the storm drains and sewers, gold, anything of value,” Reveron allegedly told a police officer after his arrest.
The admission appears to confirm a major theory behind what’s motivating a march of mole people – including a trio of headlamp-wearing, overalls-clad “Minions” doppelgangers caught on viral video popping out of a manhole near Penn Station – who baffled and enthralled New Yorkers since the summer.
The subterranean shenanigans by Reveron, Rodriguez and at least four other still-unidentified sewer muck divers unfolded early Wednesday near East 61st Street and Park Avenue, prosecutors said – just steps from the swanky Loews Regency New York hotel.
Surveillance video showed two separate Toyota Corolla sedans pull up and six shady customers hop out, pry open a sewer cover and hop into the stinky depths beneath the streets, court papers state.
When the trashy troupe emerged, they hopped into the same cars and drove in tandem over the Queensboro Bridge, where license plate readers helped identify the drivers, court documents and sources said.
The hulking Rodriguez was the first suspect identified, leading investigators to body-camera footage from past traffic stops that helped track down Reveron, sources said.
Cops arrested the pair on trespassing and conspiracy charges, leading to their arraignment in Manhattan court Friday.
Both were granted supervised release, with the jumbo-sized sewer spelunker Rodriguez dodging questions from a Post reporter outside the courtroom and onto the street.
Reveron illegally entered the US, while Rodriguez is a citizen, sources said, adding that both are believed to be Venezuelan.
Both are part of a larger pattern across the city where spelunkers search for precious metals below ground, a law enforcement source said.
This year alone, elusive “mole people” were spotted crawling out of manholes not only near world leader-filled hotels and Penn Station, but also humble streets in Brooklyn and Queens.
Large groups of men were twice spotted plunging into open manholes in Williamsburg and Gravesend in Brooklyn during the early morning hours May 29.
The back-to-back mole men feature was followed by the bizarre August video showing three sewer sojourners in bib overalls and donning headlamps outside Penn Station, who acrobatically left the depths and disappeared into the night.
Another enigmatic nightcrawler – this time clad in a red and black bandana – in a pulled a similar stunt in Middle Village, Queens in mid-September.
The deeply weird incidents seemed like the 1984 film “C.H.U.D” – a cult classic about “cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers” in the city’s sewers – come to life.
But officials said the most likely explanation was significantly less sci-fi horror, but still outlandish wishful thinking.
“We have seen a number of incidents over the past few months of individuals going into the sewer system to look for valuables and other scrap metal after a storm,” the NYPD said in a statement.
“This incident fits that same criteria, but out of an abundance of caution given the UN General Assembly and the sensitivity of the location, the NYPD is conducting additional security sweeps with our federal partners.”
The gold-seeking CHUD gang with Reveron and Rodriguez could be a larger crew, potentially with connections to a group who entered a subway access gate near the hotel on Monday, sources said.
When Reveron was picked up, he was driving without a license and charged separately for that offense, police said. He has an immigration detainer after his arrest.
He has one previous arrest for criminal mischief in Queens, which his attorney Ryan Kennedy said was for car stripping.
A federal law-enforcement source briefed on the matter said that neither suspect appeared to have had malicious intent or posed any threat to the dignitaries staying at the hotel, including Netanyahu.
Reveron’s attorney, Kennedy, didn’t seem surprised by the treasure-hunting accusations.
“He told the police that he was looking for valuables, which seems plausible,” the lawyer said.
https://nypost.com/2026/09/25/us-news/gold-digging-mole-people-busted-for-diving-into-manhole-near-nyc-hotel/
No comments:
Post a Comment