My iPhone 6 was stolen. Can it be wiped clean

Question

My phone was stolen.  We immediately put it into lock mode with a reward.  The "thief" obviously could not activate the phone but clearly wants the reward.  My brother in law went to meet the man who said he found the phone.  He sent me a picture.  Obviously someone has tried to restore it to factory settings and cannot activate the phone.
My question is if and when I get the phone back will it have all my data and pictures on it when I put in all the correct log in details? The last back up i did was only in October (unfortunately my fault)

Answer 1

unoporbruno wrote:
Your carrier will have the ability to brick the iPhone rendering it uselss to whoever stole it.
Sorry, but that's not true. All any carrier can do is block a phone from connecting to that carrier's network. A carrier cannot disable the iPhone itself. Not all carriers will blacklist a phone at all, and even if the carrier does, the phone would still potentially work with other carriers unless all the carriers in the country cooperate in blacklisting the phone. Even then the phone can still be taken to another country and used.
It's still valuable to file a report with the carrier, but not in the expectation that the carrier can completely disable the phone.
Also, just FYI, you responded to a post that's almost a year old, and King Penguin already instructed the OP to contact the cell carrier.
Regards.