Do you ever dream of finding something that’s worth big bucks? Well, for one woman that dream came true.

An abstract masterpiece was found in the trash by a woman who really didn’t know much about modern art. The painting subsequently sold for a million dollars.

The painting was discovered back in 2003 by Elizabeth Gibson. She spotted the canvas on her morning walk as she strolled Manhattan’s upper west side. She felt the painting was powerful.

It turns out that the painting was “Tres Personajes” by Rufino Tamayo. It’s a brightly colored abstract and it was purchased by phone at Sotheby’s Latin American art sale.

The painting was actually stolen. Gibson searched for years for information about the painting. She finally came across an article about the painting on Antiques Roadshow’s website. The article stated the painting had been stolen in 1989.

Gibson received a reward of $15,000 for returning the valuable painting and she’ll also get a portion of the sales price.

It certainly pays to keep your eyes open when walking through city streets!

Did you hear about the kind New Zealand burglar?

He snuck into a home through a window and stole several items such as the property owners laptop, camera and wallet. Unfortunately the couple were unable to make insurance claims on these items for some reason.

A short while after the burglary the couple returned home to find their missing items along with gloves and a basketball that had been purchased using their credit card. The kind hearted burglar had left a note apologizing for robbing them and stated that he’d leave money in their mailbox to pay for the window that he’d broken.

I wish all burglars only borrowed things!

Now here’s a story with a complicated twist!

This past July in Orlando, Brittany Ossenfort complained that it was not she who had been jailed recently on a prostitution charge, that the arrestee claiming to be her was Richard Phillips, who had befriended Ossenfort last year (while pretending to be a woman) and had become her roommate, but who with the passage of time began dressing and acting like her until Ossenfort finally discovered “she” was a man.

This was of course after which Phillips allegedly stole Ossenfort’s financial identity.

Ossenfort admitted to being completely fooled by Phillips: “He acted like a girl, talked like a girl, looks like a girl. He doesn’t even have an Adam’s apple.”

Two German teenagers in Berlin weren’t all that smart when they robbed another teenager.

The girls stole a 15 year olds shoes, money and mobile phone. I suppose they felt sorry for the girl though, because they ended up giving her their old mobile phone.

The two girls, both 17 years old, forgot that they old mobile contained photos of themselves smiling and striking poses.

Police were quick to publish the photos of the thieves online Tuesday in an effort to catch the girls. The girls ended up turning themselves in when their pictures appeared on the evening news.

“One girl was brought down by her father after he saw her on the television,” said police spokesman Frank Plewka. “Today the pictures were in the papers, so the father’s phone has been ringing all day, because everyone recognized them.”

Neither girl had ever been in trouble with the law before.