My understanding is that he is not the person who deleted the data, the agent did it by entering the pin. That’s an interesting wrinkle. Is that materially different than entering the wrong pin 10 times which often also wipes the device?

“Blocks con traffic” - what’s that?

Yes, the cell tower can see the unique IMEI of your phone, so as long as the cell radio is on, the cell company can at least see what tower that IMEI is in range of. And if they can track the purchase of the phone to you, then they can identify your signal.