This assumes that Zhou is more concerned about possible criminal charges or the like than he is concerned about his reputation in the industry. I think he's more concerned about the latter, and that's part of the reason I also think the Bitcoinica situation is more or less as reported. Everyone involved intends to have a future once they get past this mess.

I don't really care about my reputation now even. If I start a bank or investment firm in my 30s, I think not many people will still mind putting their money on my hand. And I'm not going to build anything Bitcoin-related in the foreseeable future. I'll simply go back to my SaaS business.

The big problem is the criminal charge. Bitcoin is a big unknown in the legal world and anything can happen if the police touches this case (unlicensed market operation? terrorism? money laundering?). It makes possible things like migration in the future way harder than they should be.