Stolen iPhone 12 Pro Max - receipt of three e-mails from I Find - Apple

Those emails were NOT from Apple. They were a scam to steal your Apple ID and password, a common phishing scam: You may get a text or email from “Apple” or “Apple Security” (or sometimes “Police”) saying your phone has been found and to click on a link to see its location. This is NEVER from Apple or from law enforcement; it is from the thief or fence to steal your Apple ID and identity. Delete any such message without responding to it. Apple never gets involved in lost or stolen devices→Avoid phishing emails, fake ‘virus‘ alerts, phony support calls, and other scams

hobby_69 wrote:

Hello all,

My iPhone 12 Pro Max was stolen more than a month ago (on February 29 to be exact). I then immediately changed the status of the phone on "lost" in the iFind section of my iCloud account. Phone has been offline until today at 4.14PM (some 40 days later) when I received three consecutive e-mails from Apple stating (in that order) 1/ Lost Mode Enabled - 2/ A sound was played and 3/ iPhone has been found in Morocco some 1700 miles from where I live. What does this mean? Does this mean that the person who stole my phone gained access to my data? Thanks for your reply

If the phone was offline when you enabled Lost Mode, that request would have been pending until the phone in range of a network again. It sounds like that's what happened. The phone is in range of a network somewhere in Morocco and Lost Mode is now enabled. No, it doesn't mean anyone has gained access to your data.

hobby_69 wrote:

Thanks for your reply. I just hope that, now that the lost function has been activated on my stolen phone, the personal data on the phone will never be available to anyone.

If you had a password on the phone, the data was encrypted, and whether or not it was in lost mode, the data would be inaccessible without the password.

hobby_69 wrote:

One thing still rattles my brain : if the stolen phone was turned on and could get access to a network then in order to get to that point, it would have been unlocked, would it not?

No. It just needs to be turned on.