New York City Transit’s lost-and-found lost track of more than 80% of the items investigators put through the system, according to a report by the MTA’s Office of the Inspector General.
“Riders should have faith that their lost property is being handled responsibly and with care, and MTA agencies must have effective protocols in place to return those items,” Inspector General Daniel Cort said in a statement.
The NYC Transit Lost Property Unit, headquartered at Penn Station, received some 68,000 pieces missing items last year, as well as more than 31,500 claims from straphangers seeking stuff they’d lost.
In early 2024, investigators with Cort’s office turned in 24 items they said they’d found on subways or buses — ranging from jewelry and eyeglasses to books and keys — handing them over to transit employees at subway stations or aboard buses.
Later, they filed claims seeking to get those items back from the Lost Property Unit.
But of those two dozen items, investigators determined, twenty of them — or 4 ouf 5 – never made it to the midtown lost-and-found.
“Items that should have been received and processed for safekeeping — as required by law and agency policy — were likely instead disposed of or kept for their own use by employees,” investigators wrote. “This apparent integrity issue is of considerable concern.”
Of the four items that made it safely to the Lost Property Unit’s office, OIG investigators were only able to recover one — a keychain with its owner’s email address on it, with which staff at the lost and found were able to contact investigators.
Three other items, including a pair of Armani eyeglasses, were not successfully matched to lost-item claims filed by the investigators.
The OIG report notes that the lost-and-found concerns are nothing new — a series of similar tests conducted in 2006 and 2007 had “similarly disappointing results,” with 23 of 26 “lost” objects going missing within the system.
In response to the OIG’s findings, MTA spokesperson Laura Cala-Rauch said the transit agency had “closely reviewed” the Thursday report.
“All transit employees are expected to follow the Lost Property Bulletin, which details the proper procedures when finding, handling and storing lost items while on duty,” she said in a statement.
Cala-Rauch added that a new system for reporting, tracking, and recovering lost property is expected to go into effect on the subway system by year’s end, and that a bulletin has gone out to bus employees reminding them of proper lost-and-found protocol.
Originally Published: August 21, 2025 at 4:36 PM EDT
