I find this argument fascinating. The point isn’t technological prevention. It’s so they can punish you, if they choose to, if they find you using one. I’d wager they prefer that people doing illegal things do use vpn, so they can a) build and use tools to detect it, since then by definition only criminals will use it, and b) rack up criminal charges. And of course c) ignore it if they want (either for legit reasons, like corp vpn, or because the user is an in-group member or somebody they want leverage on)

“Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and I will find something in them to hang him". This just makes it easier to find something.