Criminals in New York City used to routinely steal subway tokens by jamming the turnstile slots with paper and then physically sucking the trapped token out with their mouths.

A closer look

Criminals in New York City used to routinely steal subway tokens by jamming the turnstile slots with paper and then physically sucking the trapped token out with their mouths. This deeply unhygienic practice was so widespread in the late twentieth century that transit workers actually started sprinkling chili powder and mace into the turnstile slots to punish anyone attempting the token-sucking maneuver. The sheer dedication required to place one's mouth on a public transit surface in New York City just to save a couple of dollars remains a terrifying testament to human desperation. Eventually, the MTA abandoned the physical token system entirely and switched to magnetic swipe cards, forcing local opportunists to find entirely new and slightly less disgusting ways to commit low-level fare evasion