Executive Director of shrimp processors group charged with embezzlement

A Gulfport man has been charged with stealing money from the seafood group he worked for.

Biloxi Police say 79-year-old Dr. Charles David Veal has been charged with felony embezzlement.

The arrest stemmed from an investigation which started after the American Shrimp Processors Association reported that Veal had transferred funds from the group’s non-profit bank account to his personal account.

Veal was the ASPA’s executive director and held that position full time since 2012. He began his association with the group in 2011 as a part-time employee.

The alleged embezzlement came to light after Veal was terminated for cause on July 15, 2022. Jim Wimberly, general counsel for the ASPA, said after Veal’s termination, his company laptop was seized. Wimberly said all banking information was deleted from the computer, but was recovered forensically — and found checks that Veal had written to himself from the ASPA’s nonprofit account at Hancock Whitney Bank.

Veal is not the only person who had access to the account, Wimberly said.

He is suspected of stealing more than $3 million between 2016 and 2022, according to Biloxi Police.

The ASPA was founded in Biloxi in 1964 to represent and promote the interests of the domestic, U.S. wild-caught, warm water shrimp processing industry along the Gulf and South Atlantic.  It has members from Texas to North Carolina.

The Board of Directors will be handling the executive director’s duties for now, Wimberly said, until the investigation is complete and safeguards are put into place to prevent this type of situation from happening again.

In addition to Biloxi Police, the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office, US Treasury and the IRS are involved in the investigation, Wimberly said.