Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.

In the spring of two thousand and eight, twelve year old Shamira Fingers was walking down a street near her home in South Philadelphia when she suddenly and surprisingly fell into an open sewer hole.

She was treated and released at a local hospital, but investigators say she was lucky, as falls like that can cause serious injuries and sometimes can even be fatal.

Once a rare crime, disappearing manhole covers has become an expensive and dangerous problem for cities around the world, with thieves swiping dozens to hundreds, sometimes thousands of them at a time.

So we're here to open the lid on manhole cover capers.

Welcome to Criminalia.

I'm Maria Tremarki.

And I'm Holly Frye.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to Philly.

One of the first manhole cover thefts have significant media attention in the United States happened in nineteen ninety in California after two individuals were caught attempting to sell hundreds of stolen manhole covers, as well as storm drain grates and water meter covers that were taken from Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Vernon, California, dubbed the manhole Men.

They had planned to sell their stolen items, which weighed in total roughly one ton for seventy five dollars to a scrap metal yard.

Instead, they found themselves charged with receiving stolen property and grand theft and pleading guilty to the heist instead of collecting a bit of a payout.

Before that arrest, though, people had a few pretty innocent theories about those missing lids.

Suppose tourists were taking them as souvenirs, or some people imagine that because of the popularity of the first teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie released that same year, kids were taking them to use his play shields, mimicking the cartoon characters.

Time Magazine reported that the quote least plausible idea was that someone was stealing the covers for money.

The next year, over a span of three months, thieves stole between four hundred and five hundred manhole covers in Detroit, Michigan, and roughly forty of those lids were taken in a single day in a six block radius on the west side of the city.

Officials there stated that some thieves were using winches, while others masqueraded as construction workers, and some amazingly just tried to pry the heavy lids out with no more than their own hands.

In the spring of twenty twelve, residents of the South Richmond Hill neighborhood in Queens, New York, became suspicious when they saw a man wearing a utility style reflective safety vest using an automotive jack to lift a cast iron manhole cover from the middle of the street by himself.

Eyewitnesses later stated they'd watched him struggle to move the lid into a tree, said an investigator from Consolidated Edison, the utility company that owned that manhole cover.

Quote.

One of the neighbors I talked to said he thought he was legitimate.

He was wearing a vest in utility type clothing.

According to Kaned, it used to be that no more than two or three of the company's covers went missing in a year, but that has changed.

Michael Clendennen, a spokesperson for the utility company, explained at the time, quote, there seems to be a trend or a spate of incidents that seems to be happening at an alarming rate.

Now.

I can't imagine people are decorating their living rooms with them.

New York City alone has three hundred and fifty thousand manhole covers across all five boroughs, and since two thousand and nine, as many as sixteen hundred covers go missing each year.

Journalist Jace Larson of Channel two News in Houston reported that manhole cover theft there quote cost taxpayers one hundred and twenty six thousand dollars in the course of eleven months, after fourteen hundred covers and greats had to be replaced because of thefts between January and November of twenty thirteen.

Replacement costs can be high, and often replacing a single manhole cover can cost up to five hundred dollars.

That's including labor costs as well as the cost of materials.

Manhole Covers are not the easiest things in the world to steal.

They're very heavy, and they're smack in the middle of the road, and yet it keeps happening.

So we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, but when we're back, we'll talk about more of these heists, including international thefts and what's driving the crimes.

Welcome back to criminalia, stated then Lieutenant Frank Venore of the Philadelphia Police Department regarding manhull cover theft in his city.

Quote, it's tough to catch these thieves in the act, but we're setting up stings, we're working on it.

It's a high priority.

Let's look at how this has become a pretty challenging fight.

So first, we actually have even more examples of how widespread manhole cover thievery is, so let's run through them because it's just that prevalent.

The Chicago Department of Water Management, for instance, reported a significant rise in thefts in the early two thousands, and in two thousand and four reported the theft of two hundred covers in just one month, with forty of those covers reportedly taken in a single day.

Authorities in Atlanta, Georgia, busted what they described as a quote large manhole cover ring in two thousand and eight after discovering a van that was loaded with several covers and their frames.

The individuals involved were arrested and charged with interfering with government property and theft by receiving.

In twenty thirteen, police in Florida arrested a suspect in the disappearance of one hundred and sixty six manhole covers over a roughly three week period.

Charges against that perpetrator included twenty one counts of grand theft, four counts of false verification to a secondhand metal dealer, and one hundred and sixty six counts culpable negligence exposure to harm.

In December of twenty twenty one, thirty manhole covers were taken in a single day from the streets of Chatham County, Georgia.

Everywhere from Greensboro, North Carolina, Long Beach, California, Cleveland, Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and many many other cities across the country have seen or rise in this type of heist during the last few decades.

And it's also an international problem.

Birmingham, England, saw more than nine hundred manhole covers go missing in just six months in two thousand and eight, and that's part of a bigger picture, with hundreds more manhole cover stolen in a wave of heists nicknamed the Great Drain Robbery, spreading across the United Kingdom since the early two thousands.

And in the city of Coolcutta, India, more than ten thousand manhole covers were taken in the span of just two months.

We have a lot of information about thefts and China coming up, so please be kind because my Chinese pronunciation is very poor.

China decided to take a hard line to tackle this problem.

According to China's Jinhau news agency, roughly quote, two hundred and forty thousand manhole and street drain covers were stolen in Beijing in two thousand and four, resulting in at least eight deaths.

In fact, so many manhole covers are stolen in China that one city began tracking lids using GPS.

These so called smart manhole covers were first tested in the streets of Hangzu, and they handle real time monitoring of manhole cover inclination and displace, stated Dao jaan Ming, an official in Hungzu's Urban Management office, to state news agencies.

Xing Hui quote, when a cover is moved and the tilt and angle is greater than fifteen degrees, the tag will send an alarm signal to us.

When that alarm is triggered, it automatically locates the manhole cover and sends relevant tracking information to authorities.

Chinese authorities have also set strict punishments for those found guilty stealing or damaging manhole covers.

Charges of quote endangering transportation or endangering public safety are both charges that can potentially lead to the death penalty, according to the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China.

We're going to take a pause for a word from our sponsors.

When we return, we'll talk about the primary motivation behind stealing a manhole cover or one hundred of them, and how some municipalities are trying to stop it.

Welcome back to criminalia.

How much do you know about manholes in their covers.

They're heavier than you may think.

Let's talk through.

It before we get into why and how they're stolen.

Let's talk about the basics of those manhole covers.

Some municipalities, you'll hear them call them maintenance holes or access covers, but they're the same thing, and there are roughly eighteen million of them covering manholes across the United States, give or take over the recent years.

In the United States, most manholes and manhole covers are circular, but it's common to see rectangular or square manholes used in other countries.

They're there to allow access to various underground utilities.

But if you take a peek under those covers, you'll find three different types.

Normal manholes are typically four to five feet deep, and they're right enough for an average person to fit into or fall into.

It's likely you would be injured if you fell into that open hole.

Shallow manholes are two to three feet deep, and these are typically placed either where a sewer branch begins or in areas with low traffic.

In fact, manholes are intentionally located in areas where a sewer line changes direction or pipe size, or comes to a junction.

Manholes that have a depth greater than five feet are known as deep manholes, and these usually have a built in entry method like a ladder, and typically have a heavier cover.

The markings that you see on manhole lids usually designate what type of utilities or facilities exist below, such as natural gas or water, sewer or another type of service.

And manhole covers have been around for longer than you may think.

The first manhole covers have been tracked back to first century CE, when ancient Romans began covering sewer openings with lids made out of stone.

Materials like sandstone and wood were common cover materials until the mid nineteenth century, when manhole covers became more like we know them today.

Over the years, they've changed with safety improvements and better functionality, but most manholes in the United States have covers that are made with cast iron, which can withstand the weight of traffic.

Those covering normal manholes, as we just described, typically weigh between one hundred and two hundred pounds, and with that kind of weight, stealing the covers is typically a multi person job.

Covers are pried out of manholes, typically with a crowbar, and then transported in the backs of trucks or vans to scrap metal yards where thieves can get some cash for their loot.

In regard to the increasing manhole cover thefts in the town of Hanover, Massachusetts, now retired police chief Walter Sweeney stated quote, they're fairly heavy, but a couple of men with a decent sized pickup truck can actually steal enough of these things that they can make some money.

The demand for scrap metal in the United States is the primary driver in this kind of theft, and it's driven by the growing demand for recycled metals in China, India, South Korea and other developing nations, and as a result, scrap metal prices have really spiked over the last few decades.

And this is actually not a crime or crime wave that's limited to manhole covers.

These thefts are tied to the bigger business of the theft of recyclable metals, which also includes aluminum, copper, stainless steel, brass.

The demand for metals is rising, and today if an item contains a recyclable metal, it's considered to be a theft risk.

And that's everything from the copper pipes in your house to the catalytic converter in your car.

Even beer kegs are at risk, and the beer industry has estimated a loss of about fifty million dollars in stolen stainless steel kegs in a single year.

According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, d C.

The industry's largest trade organization.

Scrap metal is an eighty five billion dollar industry in the United States alone, and thieves are following the money.

The most common reason manhole and drain covers are stolen is for the payout when those are sold for scrap, and the amount of that payout is based on the price of scrap metal on the market at the time.

So for perspective on that, the cost of scrap metal is rising and it's doing that quickly.

In two thousand and one, one ton of scrap metal was worth seventy seven dollars.

In two thousand and four that jumped to three hundred dollars a ton, and as of twenty ten it rose to as much as five hundred dollars a ton.

Now retired Rochester Police Chief Paul McGee said of the thefts in his city, quote, it's absolutely outrageous.

Anything that's metal and not bolted down is on the table to be stolen.

It's a huge, huge problem.

Stated Frank Kotzi, former chair of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, quote, Metals theft has become a huge problem all over the world.

As a trade association with representatives from thirty five countries, we've been dealing with this for a few years and it has definitely gotten worse over the last year or so as a result of the high demand from China and India and other countries.

He and the association urge scrap dealers to first of course, not deal with stolen materials or suspected stolen materials, and instead report those items to the police.

That sounds simple, but legitimate scrap metal dealers argue that they fear retaliation and prosecution because it can sometimes be impossible to differentiate stolen items from legal ones.

Missing manhull covers or drain covers are problematic for a number of reasons.

Explained Milvan Blair Consolidated Edison's vice president for Brooklyn Queen's Electric Operations quote, Stealing manhole covers is dangerous.

Every One who steals these covers creates a serious hazard for pedestrians and motorists, So to his point, missing lids expose underground services to anyone and everyone, allowing those services to be potentially tampered with.

Missing covers can also cause property damage.

If you were to, for instance, drive over one in your car, you could easily damage your vehicle.

You might also lose control of your vehicle and cause potential injuries to yourself and any pedestrians nearby.

And those open holes may cause personal injury if you trip over or even fall into one while walking.

In Philadelphia, which many considered to be one of the hardest hit cities when it comes to manhole cover theft in the United States.

Officials have started to lock down the city's manhole covers literally with specialized locking lids, and according to the most recent numbers, about twenty five percent of the covers in the city are now secured that way.

Some municipalities are trying to stop the thefts by replacing covers with alternative materials such as plastic, fiberglass, and polymers, but that doesn't always help.

City officials in Bogata, Columbia, began gradually replacing cast iron covers with non recyclable plastic ones.

About twenty percent of the city's three hundred thousand covers have been replaced, but stated Hernando Martinez, commercial manager for the company manufacturing those new lids, quote in twenty eleven, thieves began stealing the plastic tops, so the city started installing satellite tracking devices in those new covers, only to then discover that the plastic lids were being stolen and then resold to unsuspecting public works departments in other parts of Columbia.

Some cities across the United States have enacted or are considering enacting metals theft legislation.

In many cases, those law require thieves to pay restitution, and they may receive probation.

Using New York City legislation as an example, by law, it's illegal to quote, remove, or transport through a long or across a public street, any manhole cover, including but not limited to, the cover of an opening in the ground street or sidewalk used by a public utility or authority to access underground vaults, structures, installations, or other enclosed space, or the cover of such an opening that is part of a sewer system, fuel storage system, or water supply system.

So per that law, anyone who steals a single cover is liable for a civil penalty.

That fine is not less than twenty five hundred dollars and no greater than ten thousand dollars.

In addition to civil penalties, if you knowingly violate that law, it is considered a misdemeanor crime, and if you're convicted, you could be fined between five hundred and ten thousand dollars or imprisoned for up to thirty days, or both for each violation.

These laws are still in their infancy in many municipalities, and some early statutes have proven unenforceable or ineffective.

Combating this problem is an ongoing global effort.

It's a work in progress.

Ah, do you want to have a boosted Bevy?

While we discussed this.

I would I feel like I should put a safety vest on before we talk about it.

No, you're safe, You're safe.

You're safe.

So, as we've mentioned, we're we're kind of playing with existing beverages for this season, and this one offered up an opportunity that is also involves guesswork, because we don't know how to make this drink.

I'll explain.

So it just so turns out that there is a drink called a scrap iron, but it's kind of a proprietary affair.

So this is a drink you can only get on t Fusky Island in South Carolina at a particular restaurant there.

And basically in the fifties, according to legend, there were a lot of people that were running moonshine from Savannah, Georgia, over to Dafusky Island, which was illegal, and they would sometimes disguise it with scrap metal over the cases of moonshine, and so if they got stopped by police, they would say, I'm just running some scrap metal over to my friends and or scrap iron specifically.

And so now there is a drink that you can have on Defuski Island that is called a scrap Iron.

And as I said, we don't know the recipe they have.

This restaurant that owns this recipe has never released it, but based on the guesses that people have and what people do know about it, it kind of sounds like a marriage between a Long Island iced tea and an Arnold Palmer Wow, because it is believed to have lemonade iced and then kind of all your booze in it, right, like vodka, whiskey, rum, et cetera.

So I thought I'm in a phase where I'm already playing a lot with Arnold Palmers for no other reason than just felt like it.

Lately, I love Arnold Palmer's.

It's hard for me to say it, but I love to drink.

I did you, and it's it's one of my beloved's favorite drinks to get in a restaurant.

Also, if anybody doesn't know, it's a non alcoholic drink, so like it's a super easy like it's lemonade and iced tea.

And that's it, and it's super delightful, it's very refreshing.

It's difficult to say because that name is just tricky, but a lot of people love them, and I love them as an opportunity to do either.

When I have people over which I have had a lot lately, I can do an alcoholic version, but I also like to dress it up for a non alcoholic version, and so I've been playing with it already, So this is gonna benefit from.

That perfect timing, all right, So for ours.

And I'm toyed with the name because here's the thing in this whole story that I cannot get out of my head.

Stealing manhole covers for the fairly paltry amount of money that a ton of scrap iron will get you makes no sense to me.

It makes no sense to me.

Yeah, that's just crazy.

Right, Like I would just pick up a shift job somewhere rather than do that.

That to me, is less work than the physical, arduous effort you have to put in to do this, plus the sneakiness, which is its own effort.

Yes, so I'm calling this drink the easier way, uh, because it's there are just easier ways to do it.

So to make an easier way in its alcoholic form, you're gonna like this one because you already said you like Arnold Palmer's and there's also stuff in this you're gonna like.

So you are gonna put into your shaking tin an ounce of chili liqueur, an ounce of rye whiskey, three ounces of lemonade, and three ounces of unsweetened iced tea, because the lemonade is already plenty sweet.

And you're just gonna shake this baby up and pour it into a glass with a ton of ice.

If you want to get fancy.

I'm always liking to get fancy.

You can do a to heen rim on it, so it's got a little spicy chilli.

Yeah, it's very yummy, and that you can just either dip one I like to do only half because some people don't like to constantly have to sip from a spicy rim.

You can just you know, cut a lemon and run it along one half of the rim and dip into heener or just gently shake to heen over it.

It'll stick where the lemon juice was, and then you have an absolutely delicious, very very yummy beverage.

To make the mocktail version of this is also very simple, because all we're gonna do you were gonna skew your amounts of lemonade and unsweetened tea, so instead of equal parts, you'll still have three ounces of lemonade, four ounces of unsweetened tea, and then an ounce of any type of hot pepper or chili syrup that you like or have on hand, so you can use a holopano syrup, you can use.

I have a friend who's experimenting with hatch chili syrup.

That terrifies me a little bit, but you could do that.

I love hatch chili's I would love to know how that experiment grow.

I'm wimpy, so I mean, in there easy to make, right.

We talk about making syrups all the time.

A very simple is a one cup of sugar, one cup of water, whatever your other ingredients are.

Let it simmer for a while on your stovetop, let it cool down, and then you just strain off the stuff and put it in a jar and you have your syrup.

So I mean it sounds yummy.

I'm wimpy.

Is the reason that it terrifies me.

So and then same deal.

If you want to put a ta heen rim on that one.

You can, but listen, there's always an easier way to make a buck than stealing a manhole cover.

In my book, two hundred pounds.

Very heavy, I no, thank you.

And that man, that man in New York who was doing it himself and trying to roll it into the truck.

Wow.

Wow, it's all like sitting.

I hope if you make this drink you love it.

I loved it when I made it this morning, but I did not finish it because Rye will Rye hits me harder than other beverages, so I only had about a third of it before I had to dump the rest like a responsible adult who has a job, so I don't have to lift manhole covers because your girl doesn't have that kind of strength or energy or wherewithal.

I'm like, but I could sit at a desk and drink coffee while I type.

Seems like it seems like an easy choice rather than lifting manhole covers.

We I hope you have enjoyed this story and this drink.

I love this.

I really love this mocktail.

I make it a lot at the house for friends, so I hope other people who don't drink try that one and enjoy it.

You can also just leave you as an aside.

You can also just leave your Arnold Palmer at the standard measures of three ounce three ounce and just put the chili syrup in.

You don't have to do an extra ounce of the tea if you don't want to.

Whatever's easiest.

Listen, if you buy a pre mixed Arnold Palmer, which sometimes I do when I'm lazy, you don't mess don't mess with it, don't add another thing, another ounce of tea, don't make tea just for that unless you really want to, which is also great, but like just saying, it's not gonna change it enough that you should go to extra effort if you don't feel like it, if you just have the tea separate, it'll be closer to the original drink.

But if not, great.

We will be right back here next week with another story of a kooky heist of I'm kind and the cocktail and mocktail to go with it.

Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.

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