The NYPD turned Queens sewer scavengers into a conspiracy
By Daniel Okafor · Reporting from New York ·
When two men searched New York City sewers for scrap metal, the NYPD turned poverty into a security threat to protect Benjamin Netanyahu.
The New York Police Department is treating poverty like a plot. When Kevin Rodriguez, 26, and Samuel Reveron, 25, climbed out of a manhole in Midtown Manhattan, the city saw a security breach. They saw a threat to a visiting world leader. The facts show something simpler. Two men from Queens went into the muck to find scrap metal. The NYPD is wrong to frame a desperate search for copper as a conspiracy.
A manhole on Park Avenue
The incident began predawn Wednesday. Three men exited a manhole near East 61st Street and Park Avenue. This location sat near a hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to stay for the United Nations General Assembly. Officers received the call around 4:30 EST.
The NYPD and the US Secret Service launched a hunt. Detectives from the major case unit went door-to-door on Park Avenue. They used license plate readers and body cam video from previous traffic stops to find the suspects. NBC News said the men climbed out of the manhole on Sept. 24, 2026.
The police arrested Rodriguez and Reveron on Thursday. They face charges of conspiracy and trespassing. The NYPD said it acted out of an abundance of caution given the sensitivity of the location.
Scavengers work beneath the streets
The men did not target the hotel. They targeted the trash. Rodriguez and Reveron told police they entered the sewers to look for valuables that wash away in storm drains. They wanted "valuable items that make money," according to Yonhap.
This is not an isolated event. The NYPD has seen a citywide pattern of people entering sewers for scrap metal. Detectives reported sightings of people wearing boots and hip waders during predawn hours. Suspects in other cases sought copper, rings, and gold chains for resale.
The city is a map of these incursions. Surveillance footage from May showed a group prying open a manhole cover in Astoria, Queens. Other men were seen climbing out of manholes in South Brooklyn. In Bensonhurst, three men emerged from a sewer at Bay Ridge Parkway and 17th Avenue. City crews later found a shovel in that system, according to ABC7 New York. Economic desperation drives these acts.
Why invent a conspiracy?
The city claims the sewers are too dangerous for the public. The Department of Environmental Protection told the BBC that toxic gases and flooding make entry illegal. A woman died this year after falling into an open manhole in Midtown Manhattan.
But the NYPD's reaction went beyond public safety. They used federal partners to conduct security sweeps. They treated two scavengers as if they were an army. This response ignores the reality of the man they were protecting.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a man under siege. He faces an ongoing corruption trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in November 2024 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The city spent vast resources protecting a man who is a fugitive in the eyes of the ICC.
This obsession with the "threat" recalls the 1956 science fiction film The Mole People.
Brian Kennedy, the attorney for Samuel Reveron, said "desperation leads to great efforts." He told NBC News that there is no connection to the UN or any nefarious scheme. He noted that while it is not advised to go into a sewer, the case lacks substance.
The NYPD seeks a conspiracy where there is only a lack of money. They used the presence of a foreign leader to justify a high-tech dragnet against two men from Queens. The conspiracy charge is a tool to inflate a trespassing case.
The facts suggest a different outcome. Prosecutors will likely drop the conspiracy charges because no evidence links the men to terrorism. The men entered the sewers for copper, not for a coup.
The city will likely respond by sealing manholes near diplomatic sites with tamper-proof locks. This follows the pattern of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But locks do not stop desperation. The NYPD will probably increase early-morning patrols in industrial corridors to stop metal scavenging. This is a reaction to a symptom, not a cause.
The verdict is in the dirt. Rodriguez and Reveron are not spies. They are not saboteurs. They are men who risked toxic gas for the price of a gold chain. The NYPD's "abundance of caution" is just a name for the fear of the poor. When the city sees a man climbing out of a sewer, it should see a failure of the economy, not a threat to the state.
Sources
- BBC: Two arrests made after men emerged from New York City sewers
- CNN: Pair arrested after emerging from manhole near hotel where Netanyahu stays, police say
- NBC News: Mystery solved? Two arrested in connection with NYC’s sewer emergence
- ABC7 New York: 3 men spotted climbing out of Bensonhurst sewer, NYPD says
- BBC: Two arrested after people seen mysteriously emerging from various New York City sewers
- Yonhap: [영상] 뉴욕 맨홀서 기어 나온 2명 체포…"왜 들어갔나" 물으니