can I use the IMEI number to have the police track my phone?

The Police can request your mobile carrier via a warrant or judicial requirement to track a stolen device. The Police themselves do not track lost iPhones.

The mobile carrier / company uses the IMEI to identify and track the iPhone.

You can give the Police the IMEI if you want. Whether they want to go through the trouble of asking your carrier to track it is a different question all together.

If you had Find My iPhone turned on, you can try to track it yourself: If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is lost or stolen - Apple Support

In theory, cellular carriers can track any device on their network using the IMEI number, however, they will not do so without a court order. Unless a serious felony is involved (abduction of a child, etc), the police aren't going to do anything other than make a note of it and file it away.

Whoever you spoke to obviously doesn't understand how Find My iPhone works. FMiP has nothing to do with the IMEI of the phone. It tracks it based on having signed into the device with your iCloud account and turning that feature on. If the phone is powered off or does not have a data connection, it can not be tracked using Find My iPhone.

If the device doesn't have power then you can't track it.

You can't track it with any number. Only Find my Phone.

You shouldn't need the IMEI number to report a lost phone to law enforcement. I've read a lot of incident reports and don't recall seeing serial numbers on them.

The answer is still no.

Do this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472

Its probably been broken up for parts and exported

I hope you either cancelled the SIM or had a SIM PIN set.

Whoever has your phone can rack up one monumental long distance bill, that's what...

Many phones are discarded or broken for spares and the SIMs used to phone all over the world. Then you get the bill.

If was stole or lost ,just will help to the police find the person,if use the SIM card.