Week 3 Case Study
Acct-217
Week 3
Case Study
The three parts of the fraud triangle are motive, opportunity and rationalization. Motive
is when a person thinks they may have a reason to do something like fraud or steal something.
They have it in their head that they need to do this or they will not overcome what they are up
against. Many people’s motives to commi’ng fraud would be they need money for bills or they
need to pay something and they just don’t make enough money for it. In this article it is
because McKinley needed money to cover up the fact that he did not have the funds to back up
when he invested his money in to the local tractor dealership and all the money he had already
borrowed from his employer and could not pay back. McKinley was the CFO of a bank. He
should be the one everyone looks up to in a company. McKinley had though that investing some
of his paychecks in to an investment would help him financially, but it did not. It made him do
something no one should do and embezzle money and commit fraud.
Opportunity is when he or she has a favorable or promising combination of
circumstance’s to commit an undetected fraud. They have to believe they can get away with
commi’ng fraud without any punishment. In this article McKinley thinks he is the only one
