In my opinion, i think their government just controlling the investors not to invest too much on crypto. They were afraid for investors not to invest for the benefits of their government.
it is some sort of illegal because the price will be affected because they are giving away a free coin in exchange of something specially of emails. For me it is illegal yes because the market will drop after that kind of act and they are protecting the true investors who put real money, it is just kind of security of the fund.