Some states will give information about the status of a vehicle by the vin. For example Illinois at the link below, will give last time the vehicle was titled. Then any known flood damage or rebuilt. While its basic, perhaps it provides a clue to someone looking for something. It does work with 13 digit vin numbers.

https://apps.ilsos.gov/regstatus/

If there were similar things in other states, maybe we can link to them and build a little history check.