It is feared that 5 paintings stolen from the Paris Museum of Modern Art last May were thrown into the trash by one of the thieves. The paintings, by Picasso, Matisse, Leger, Braque and Modigliani, were left in the possession of one of the three people involved in the heist, who claims he panicked when the investigation started to close in and threw the paintings into a trash bin, which was emptied that day by city trash collectors. The museum was widely criticized for having a non-working alarm system, and the theft prompted several museums to re-evaluate their anti-theft systems.
Via the Los Angeles Times (see photos of the stolen paintings here)
Read about other recent art thefts in The Art Newspaper.