No, the question one would ask a private investigator is "does Mt. Gox have all the customer's funds it should?" That's a legitimate check on a company's financial situation. Teikoku Private Detective Agency is in Shibuya, as is Mt. Gox. Useful questions are "What banks do they use" and "what are their bank balances?" Any private investigator should have the contacts to find that out quickly. This is the first step when collecting a debt.

If you can locate bank accounts with more money in them than Mt. Gox owes you, you're in a good position to start debt collection efforts.

If they're considered a Payment Service Agency under Japanese law, no, they don't. Customer funds belong to the customer. Dipping into them is theft.

If you're in the US, filing a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is worth doing. They have jurisdiction over broker/dealers who sell directly to US persons, which Mt. Gox does. The SEC treats Bitcoin scams just like other scams, as Trendon Shavers found out. The SEC has a cooperation agreement with the Japan Financial Services Agency, so the SEC can make things happen in Japan. Mt. Gox can be dragged into a US court, as the ongoing Coinbase lawsuit demonstrates.

With all the publicity surrounding Mt. Gox right now, a phone call to the SEC's enforcement division from someone with significant funds stuck in Mt. Gox would probably get some attention. Ten such calls...

Yes, those are annoying. I'm tempted to write a Firefox plug-in that hides all posts with advertising signatures. Since people are paid for those posts, they're spam.

The Cerulean Tower 15th floor location is short term rental small office space. You can rent space for 1 to 8 people there. It's not just a mail drop. That may be where Karpeles is hiding out. We should know shortly; reporters will be looking there.

It hasn't been in the news in months, but the $75 million suit by CoinLab against Mt. Gox is still underway and headed for trial in November 2014. This is a big hammer hanging over Mt. Gox.

Jury Trial is set for 11/3/2014 at 09:00 AM in Courtroom 14206 before Judge Marsha J. Pechman.
United States District Court, Western District of Washington at Seattle.

Length of Trial: 10 days

Schedule:
Joinder of Parties due by 11/14/2013,
Amended Pleadings due by 11/25/2013,
Expert Witness Disclosure/Reports under FRCP 26(a)(2) due by 4/7/2014,
Motions due by 5/7/2014
Discovery completed by 6/6/2014
Dispositive motions due by 7/7/2014
Motions in Limine due by 9/29/2014
Pretrial Order due by 10/22/2014
Trial briefs to be submitted by 10/22/2014
Proposed voir dire/jury instructions due by 10/22/2014
Pretrial Conference set for 10/24/2014 at 02:30 PM before Judge Marsha J. Pechman

Mt. Gox and Tibanne are represented by two US law firms, and various routine motions have been filed by both sides. There's no claim that the US courts don't have jurisdiction. One party is a US company, and that's good enough. So, yes, you can sue Mt. Gox in a US Federal Court.

Mt. Gox is not resuming withdrawals. Again.

The February 20th announcement has less information than the previous one. There's not even a date for the next excuse.

Mt Gox claims to have moved their offices to Cerulean Tower 15F, 26­1 Sakuragaoka­cho, 150­8512 Shibuya Tokyo. They've used that address before; it's a short-term office space rental / virtual office location. Here's office rental info.

It's possible that Karpeles is holed up in there (they have enough building security and enough building exits to avoid protesters), but I doubt their whole staff is there. So where are they?

I'm watching the Mt. Gox BTC/USD price crash on BitcoinCharts (which is run by Mt. Gox) at http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html. Sometimes, the value in the "Low" column takes a jump upward briefly, but it seems to come back down after a few trades.

Right now, MtGox $180/BTC; low of $176. It was around 230 an hour ago.

As a Bitcoin network, packet forwarding ought to cost some small fee, paid in Bitcoins. The problem is that the Bitcoin system chokes on micropayments. But think about that as an idea for congestion control. Maybe you have to do some proof of work to send packets.

That's how the FCC does do new ideas. Digital AM radio and digital cellular telephony started under experimental licenses. You usually get two years, with a possible 5 year extension. If you propose a geographical limit on your stations, it's more likely to be approved, because applications are checked against a database of every other licensed service for conflicts. If you don't limit, you'll get a conflict with any other 27MHz station in the US.

It's hard for a gaijin to hide in Japan, and it's hard to get off the islands if the Japanese authorities are looking for you.

Roger Ver is a convicted felon.

Mt. Gox is not resuming withdrawals.

Mt. Gox is claiming they will issue a statement about resuming withdrawals at some future time.

There's a big difference.

Right. When you can't get anything out, the price is meaningless. Although there are some people trying to make a market in GoxBucks and GoxCoins.

Agreed. Keep no funds in any exchange for more than 24 hours.

That's a very good question. 

It's more like "can they get away with it if they do it?" Given the reluctance of Gox suckers customers to sue, probably yes.

About how big an amount? It's been observed for months that little withdrawals are more likely to get through than big ones.

Monday's coverage was bad enough, but Monday was a holiday in the US and the financial papers didn't publish. Tuesday, reporters will be back at work.

The Wall Street Journal is now asking the right question - is Mt. Gox broke? Karpeles has been stonewalling the WSJ reporters, UPI, NHK (the biggest TV network in  Japan) and the South China Morning Post. Each of those outlets reports that Mt. Gox refuses to discuss their financial stability and questions whether Mt. Gox is in financial trouble. There's talk of the Bank of Japan becoming involved.

Mt. Gox is the 4th most popular story on UPI right now. This isn't going away.

This is playing out like Enron, Lehman, and Madoff. Trouble, denial, excuses, stonewalling, more trouble. We're close to the point where law enforcement gets involved.

"Mt. Gox Shows Bitcoin's Growing Pains -- Update" - Wall Street Journal
Quotes:

Investors are increasingly concerned about the status of their Mt. Gox accounts.

In the email interview, Mr. Karpelès responded to questions about the company's solvency or protection for customers' funds by saying that the matter is confidential.

Japanese officials are cautious about making any comments about bitcoins as they wait for the Bank of Japan to finish a study about the virtual currency. Still, some Japan-based lawyers say certain restrictions, especially on exchange platforms, should be considered in order to prevent criminal use of the currency, such as for money-laundering.

"I believe that regulating exchanges would be the best way to address these problems," said So Saito, a lawyer at the Tokyo law firm of Nishimura & Asahi.