Multiple people were seen dropping into a Manhattan manhole early Sunday morning, according to police, marking yet another incident in recent weeks involving people entering or exiting manholes across New York City.
Police are searching for three men seen entering a manhole on West 141st Street, in New York City’s Hamilton Heights neighborhood, shortly before 1 a.m. on Sunday, New York Police Department sources told ABC News.
By the time police arrived, the men were gone, the sources said.
The manhole incident follows a separate incident just days earlier on Oct. 9, when police say four men and a woman were spotted emerging from a manhole on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The group drove away in a black SUV and left behind shovels and other tools, according to police sources.
Police believe these urban scavengers pose no threat and instead are looking for valuables dropped or swept away after it rains.
The events over the weekend follow similar recent instances of individuals seen entering or exiting the manholes found across New York City streets.
Last month, in a separate incident, police arrested two individuals in connection with a sighting of people climbing out of a manhole near a hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stayed briefly during the U.N. General Assembly in September.
The NYPD and federal agents conducted additional sweeps of the area out of an abundance of caution given the U.N. General Assembly and the proximity to Netanyahu’s hotel, but nothing suspicious was found.
The same week, on Friday, Sept. 25, police said three men were spotted climbing out of the sewer at Bay Ridge Parkway and 17th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, at 4:34 a.m.
The manhole was closed by the time police arrived.
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