This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shandand Audio in partnership with IHeartRadio.

In the spring of 2008, 12-year-old Shemira 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 Tremarky.

And I'm Holly Fry.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to Philly.

One of the first manhole cover thefts to have significant media attention in the United States

happened in 1990 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 $75 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

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