Phishing emails don’t usually ask people to do something illegal, though.

what law would the company or the employee be breaking?

The initial claim was that employees were doing something illegal. You can not send employees an email to instruct them to do something illegal.

Yeah, I'm sure a well paid attorney could probably come up with some legal theory that "makes it OK" to attempt to entice an employee into committing a crime for the purpose of rooting out employees who would commit a crime in exchange for money.

A well paid attorney worth their salt will likely tell you that you don't want to test that theory with a court and the various employment watchdogs.

Engaging in such a plan and through happenstance and human fallibility ending up actually creating harm to an actual customer could potentially expose you to a tort claim.

> and send them off to Re-education Camp.

We call it concentration camp here. Because of all the thinking.