Yes and no
Yes, If you are a criminal, the police will ask the operator to indicate with which antennas the Imei communicates, the very approximate location. And on ROGs that lose neighboring antennas, it can't triangulate, so +- 900m
No, in 99% of other cases the carrier can block the IMEI and the phone will be unusable unless the thief knows how to change the IMEI
You have to think about it before the Flight, Android/Google knows how to locate precisely if it is well configured