Sorry for replying to myself, but thinking a bit more about (b) I'm still not sure I get the possible motivation behind this. Why shut down a working site and risk being outed as a scam, when it was probably the only chance to recover the lost coins? Obviously if the site was fractional then a big withdrawal would put it at risk, but with some crafty play against investors (mateo style) this could have been mitigated. Unless it was completely drained, no coins left at all? In which case doing a runner was completely pointless anyway. They should have done a "hacker" story instead.
You're not thinking like a gambler.
The obvious way to recover the lose coins is to gamble and win. The site wasn't going to make much in the way of commission for a long time, since it was at a large negative profit (unless you believe '
divest' was a real player, not a last ditch attempt to attract new investors). "Borrow" a few coins from the bankroll, gamble at PD, recover the losses, repay the bankroll and everything's OK. Except you lose at PD, so need to borrow a few more. Etc. Until the bankroll is empty.
Crafty play against investors? The site was already at -300 BTC profit after AK won a bunch. Any further losses would have looked suspicious.
They did do a "hacker" story. Did you miss it?
NlNico was pretty sure divest was AK on PD...