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!

Back in 2002, the owners of a coin-operated car wash in Maryland had a hard time trying to figure out why they kept losing hundreds of dollars each week from their machines.

There was no evidence that the coin machines were being broken into, yet things just weren’t adding up.

The owners set something up to observe the machines and that’s how they discovered who was stealing the coins. It was small birds. They were getting into the machines through the coin returns and flying off with the shiny quarters.

Did you know that Jewelry store thieves sometimes swallow their stash at the scene in order to make a clean getaway? I was in the jewelry trade and I didn’t know that one!

Since this form of hiding the stash is more common than I ever knew it was, police have now started to routinely wait out those suspected of stealing jewels. The cops monitor the toilets until the evidence passes naturally.

In March of 2007 Police in Canton, Ohio arrested four men. They were certain that at least one of them had swallowed a 2-carat ring said to be worth about $30,000. Police recovered the ring the following day after sifting through the toilets. The ring still had the stores price tag on it!

In an ironic twist the Chief of Police of Oslo, Norway, Anstein Gjengedal, had his wallet pickpocketed a few days before he was set to announce a crackdown on pickpocketers.

The chief was on the Oslo Airport train when a group of people bumped into him. Checking his pockets a few minutes later the police chief realized that his wallet was gone.

Looks like that crackdown is timely!