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 who’ve baffled and enthralled New Yorkers.
Just last month, a trio of headlamp-wearing, overalls-clad “Minions” doppelgangers was caught on viral video popping out of a manhole near Penn Station.
Elusive “mole people” have been spotted crawling out of manholes not only near world leader-filled hotels and major transit hubs, but also humble streets in Brooklyn and Queens, since at least late May.
The deeply weird incidents seemed like the sewer-dwelling cannibalistic humanoid monsters from the 1984 cult classic film “C.H.U.D.” coming 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.
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.
The pair are part of a larger pattern across the city where spelunkers search for precious metals below ground, a law enforcement source said.
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 – pulled a similar stunt in Middle Village, Queens in mid-September.
The dust hadn’t even settled on the Regency hotel misadventure when another filthy threesome of mole people were spotted climbing out of a Bensonhurst sewer early Friday.
The professional urban explorer Steve Duncan, 48, former founder of Undercity and a now-ex-New Yorker, said he never found anything of value during his hundreds of trips into the city’s sewer system.
The city’s extremely efficient sewer system simply leaves no spaces or cracks where potential valuables could get stuck, he said --->READ MORE HERE
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