AurumXchange is blocking funds allegedly belonging to Zhou Tong without any disclosed (until now) reason. Legal advice on AurumXchange's side was to issue a statement as soon as possible to clarify the situation as it was being made public on this very forum.
Releasing a statement to ZT about his money being frozen : sounds ok to me.
Publishing a statement to an angry mob looking for a scapegoat : probably not the smartest thing.
I highly doubt that AE's legal counsel advised them to publish anything on a public internet forum.
I guess you're up for a surprise on this one.
In absence of any legal action from the victims of this hack,
This is an assumption, not a fact.
The fact is that at this time no party has contacted us in any way to notify us of any action (we are in contact with all the parties involved in Bitcoinica). In absence of any legal context to relate to, there is only so much we can do.
we have no course of action to contact the police, but will be held responsible if funds are released then legal processing is started at a later point.
A financial institution has to freeze funds if they suspect illegal activity/ML and report it to the authorities.
I'm not saying it would have been smart to release the funds, but maybe it isn't very smart either to release this kind of information on a public forum and not report anything to the police (AFAIK you haven't done that, have you?).
I do not know the situation on that aspect, as the funds are not held with MtGox (we are merely helping with the investigation and trying to ensure the information flows correctly to the community).