Yes they can find the phone (unsure if they can trace a throw away phone though), if the police can't there are other agencies that can help them, like the US Marshals for one and any other agency that has the equipment to and/or can get some info from the phone companies.
Beyond that, they can triangulate using both WiFi and cellular towers.
Removal of battery would in theory prevent this, except AFAIK (very exhausted right now so grain of salt without more extensive research) even cheap phones have ways to track location data from a secondary low power source.
Have you ever turned your phone off, talked about something and later that day you got served ads relevant to a conversation you had while your phone was off?
Right? So the police do not have a way to find out who the caller is?
Yes they can find the phone (unsure if they can trace a throw away phone though), if the police can't there are other agencies that can help them, like the US Marshals for one and any other agency that has the equipment to and/or can get some info from the phone companies.
Thanks. That's what I thought.
I am fairly certain today's burners at a minimum are traceable. Take the Nokia 2760 for example: a cheap prepayable phone ($20), and it has an SoC that has GPS (https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/nokia-2760-flip/specs?sku=GPNKN139DCGBB).
Beyond that, they can triangulate using both WiFi and cellular towers.
Removal of battery would in theory prevent this, except AFAIK (very exhausted right now so grain of salt without more extensive research) even cheap phones have ways to track location data from a secondary low power source.
Have you ever turned your phone off, talked about something and later that day you got served ads relevant to a conversation you had while your phone was off?
Only pays off w maga memaws walking thru opendoors