Ashton is a purchasing agent for Airway, a large manufacturer of commercial aircraft. He has been with the company for 25 years and earns $110,000 per year. Purchasing agents at Airway are given considerable discretion over sourcing decisions...that is, if, for example, Airway is in need of parts for its planes, the purchasing agent is given some autonomy in selecting the supplier of the parts so Iong as the supplier has a good history of quality control and submits competitive low price bids.

A coworker of Ashton suspects that Ashton has entered into an arrangement with a salesperson from Widgets, Inc. whereby Ashton may be giving the salesperson information for making low bids so that Widgets, Inc. gets very lucrative purchase contracts from Airway. In return for getting the contracts, Widgets Inc. is paying kickbacks to Ashton. The coworker reports his suspicions to the Company's tipline.

You are an internal auditor at Airway and are asked to investigate the matter along with a senior auditor. As a result of your investigation, you in fact discover that Ashton has received kickbacks of $140,000 over the last 18 months. During the course of the audit, the senior auditor pulled Ashton's personnel file. You also read the file and discover that Ashton has three college age children aII of whom attend expensive colleges. You also read a note indicating that Ashton's bank recently made inquiries to the company about Ashton's salary as he was arranging for a home equity loan. You also learn that Ashton has had difficulties with his new manager and has had Human Resources involved to mediate the situation. The HR memo summarizing the mediation indicates that Ashton bears ill will against his manager insofar as Ashton believes he was a better fit for promotion into the job.

As you reflect upon this situation, describe how the Fraud Triangle might be applicable to the fraud committed by Ashton. What could prevent the fraud from happening again with another purchasing agent?