Several years ago I found a Schwinn Cimarron (sans wheels) partially submerged in a creek near our home. I picked it up and brought it home and called the police to see if it had been reported as stolen. An officer came to look at the bike and said the database was down. He advised me to trash it.
I was not about to toss it, so I put it in my shed after cleaning it up a bit. A couple of hours later I got a call-back from the police. The bike had been stolen and reported, so the owner got everything but the wheels back.