If it weren't for OK! magazine, 22-year-old Columbia University student Masha Markova might have lost her $11,000 mink coat forever. But when the magazine ran photos of Lindsay Lohan wearing the one-of-a-kind coat (a gift from Markova's grandmother) after the Ivy League student lost it at the nightclub 1Oak, at a party where she sat by La Lohan and deposited her coat in a common bin, she got on the Google and found other paparazzi pics of Lohan wearing the expensive duds.

She even saw Lohan had switched coats after partying at 1Oak, arrived in a black number but leaving in the mink. She had to have stolen it!

After frantic phone calls to 1Oak and her immigration attorney, the nightclub arranged to have it returned, says the New York Post, which also showed evidence that Markova was the owner of the coat, by shooting her with it.

Returned to Markova, the coat was … torn, and reeking of booze and cigarettes. Sounds like a certain starlet's M.O.