Also unlikely; the lock is not in the device but in Apples servers denying activation. To fool it you need to put a legitimate identifier into to locked device. You can’t just make up numbers because Apple has them in a database. And you can’t duplicate them because then one of the devices gets locked.
It’s more likely they use identifiers, chips or boards from unlocked but broken devices.
I don't think they can do so for newer devices, but here's a video from REWA demonstrating the process: https://youtu.be/AYETzuYlEjE
That takes a pretty shady turn when they start checking serials to see if they're already activated. That's why people with a brand new iPad complain they can't activate it.
Thanks for sharing. This whole video is really mindblowing. The level of sophistication is very intense. There's a lot of really cool hardware and software reverse engineering going on here, and it's worth a watch.