The vin is stamped all over cars oftentimes in places where it is very hard to get to. Classic car folks will check them all to make sure they aren’t paying top dollar for a car that has been pieced together from parts of different cars.

I saw one video on the YouTubes where they were talking about how highly illegal it is to mess with the vin plate so its not like a random Kansas MVD employee just pulled some law out of their ass because they were having a bad day. Specifically, iirc, they were saying in the video it was illegal to even sell replacement rivets for vin plates.

One would think they would try to figure out who the rightful owner of a car with an altered vin before taking it to the crusher though.