How do I activate my iPhone

The iPhone had an Apple ID that was blocked so we couldn’t sign out and the owner of the Apple ID couldn’t remember the answers to security questions. So we tried 4ukey, which removed (?) the Apple ID, so we logged in to a new Apple ID.

The iPhone couldn’t detect a sim and was always on “Searching”, so we decided to update the iOS through OTA. We downloaded the file but it will give an error saying unable to install update.

So we erased the phone and set it back to factory settings. We got stuck at the setup screen where it will not activate iPhone after the join WiFi screen.

I then restored the iPhone to iOS 12.4 via 3utools, since iTunes was gave an error 3630 (which I later found it to be “failed to copy preflight options”.). The issue persisted and now, it’s still stuck at the the “Unable to Activate” screen but now it says “No Service” with a warning sign by it instead of “searching”.

Connecting to iTunes, it gives “The iPhone ‘iPhone’ could not be activated because the activation information could not be obtained from the device”

On the Device information (using 3utools), it says “Unable to Read Data” for both IMEI, Baseband Version and Primary Number and Brickstate is set to True.

I saw someone say that without IMEI, you cannot activate the iPhone. Is there a way around this?

any help will be appreciated.

thanks