I've bought a fair number of test devices. Nobody at a corner shop or mall phone repair kiosk has ever ID'ed me or kept track of the IMEI of a device I bought.
But, at least in the country I live in, this is excessive for a typical protest burner.
There are so many links in that chain that need to line up, from the manufacturer keeping track of it to the distribution system to keep track of what batch goes where to the vendor keeping track of what phone IMEI is sold when or to who. Even if all those link up you need to get at the video within the rotation time for their video storage or link to their financial transaction data.
I would not be surprised if it is still as easy to evade as shown in the show (and as easy to get wrong).