I was watching a video about a kid that killed his mother. The cops were detailing how they caught him being somewhere else than what he stated.

They weren't able to track his phone itself, because he had it turned off most of the time. But when he did turn it on they got the ping from nearby cell towers, and then they looked at highway cameras in that area. They were able to ID his license plate that way.

Basically they just ran nationwide searches for his phone, and then ran a search for his plates.

All of that data is already collected, all they need to do is "Google" it. Pretty interesting imo. A little scary too.

Edit. This guy also went to a Best buy and literally asked them for "a burner phone", and was on camera asking for it. That's how they knew what phone to look for. Lol