MOSS LANDING - The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) claims $800,000 may have been embezzled over a period of nine years.
And all the claims could point to a former employee.
"It's a violation of trust and it's very disappointing," said Chris Scholin, president and CEO of MBARI.
Scholin said he's surprised one of his own may have done this.
He said back in July an independent routine audit uncovered a transaction that didn't match the institute's records.
"MBARI is dedicated to developing new instruments and methods for studying the ocean and those funds were intended for that purpose," he said.
Scholin said the funds primarily came from accounts related to salaries and were accumulated over a period of nine years.
While hundreds of thousands of dollars went missing, he said it's not going to impact day-to-day operations.
"It's a lot of money, but it's a lot of small transactions that have taken place over a period of years and that's why it really has no impact on our today operations," he said.
Central Coast News asked Scholin how auditors couldn't see a red flag over the years, until now.
"It's a good question. No audit is 100 percent with respect to its scrutiny to every single transaction and that's really the challenge here, is in identifing small transactions which are hiding in accounts which routinley fluctuate," he said. "Very hard to detect."
This audit is performed every year.
The institute works with a budget of about $40 million a year.
