The option is either to under-punish or over-punish. My argument is that in those ambiguous cases, it's better to over-punish. Due to network effects, the economy naturally tends to reward people based on their social and business connections so, on the flip side, when it comes to punishment, it seems reasonable to take into account people's social and business connections too.

Every person should pay attention to who they work for.

If they want to claim innocence; that they were conned and didn't know anything; they should be able to demonstrate that - It shouldn't be difficult to do these days; most roles within modern companies have a very specific and detailed set of responsibilities. It's quite trivial to prove that certain actions were outside of the set of responsibilities of any given individual. If it's not trivial, then they would need to work harder to demonstrate their likely innocence; at least they should be able to cast doubt on the charges.

About comitting a crime under coercion, it should still be punished (though to a lesser extent). The employee essentially always has the option to quit their job. They can (and should) refuse to do anything illegal.