The goal of Fraud Octagon according to (Imoniana & Murcia, 2016) is to assist management in understanding fraud and providing the needs of mitigating controls in the business environment to put compliance practices in place and also make them as efficiently as possible. Mainly typifying that fraud may arise as a result of Pressure, Opportunity, Rationalization, Arrogance, Criminal mind, Human greed, Sycophancy, Lawbreaking as strategies that keep monitoring procedures and more general enterprise planning in synchronization. Dorminey, Fleming, Kranacher, and (, 2011) in their prior studies relate the factors to pressure, rationalization, criminal mind and arrogance. In the same vein (Cressey, 1953) in the triangle of fraud associates it with pressure, opportunity and rationalization.

Thus, drawing from the colloquial saying of “no pay no gain” when highlighting appropriate response and punishment for cases of fraud; some critics of the economic analysis of criminal law have so suggested that economic theory of crime can only impoverish rather than enrich (Barnes, 1998). Defacto, the stakeholders look up to the independent auditors to track the risks of material errors or fraud and judgement that it has not materially affected the financial statements.

There are innumerable independent measurements and sources for identifying and tracking cases of frauds ranging from government agencies, financial institutions, consumer complaint databases, corporate reports, accounting and audit firms, insurance organisations, NGOs and media reports. Others are academia research reports, whistleblowers, cybersecurity specialists, online forums and communities, Interpol and regulatory organisations to mention just a few. Details of the said independent measurements and sources are shown in Figure 1.

Henceforth, the study delves into how the international auditing standards (ISA) aim to mitigate the risks and the auditor's responsibility for tracking frauds. In general terms ISA maintains reliability and consistently enhance investor confidence by facilitating a comparability of approaches. This is always sorted out by a professional accountant in public practice providing services to an audit client, non-audit client and entirely in a business process audit.

International auditing standards can be understood as devices that help standardize good practices to be followed within the scope of auditing services. They aim to mitigate risks rather than just take for granted the absorption of the auditor's ethics in conducting the integrity verification process. In this context, it is worth mentioning the different ISAs (International Standards of Auditing) as a bulwark of the good conduct of information verification processes of an accountant.

ISA standards 250, 320, 450, 500, 600, 700 and 800 respectively serve as a preparedness of the conceptual framework embedded in 200 to proper understanding, application of the aforementioned standards in view of mitigation of frauds. They address materiality in the planning and execution of integrity-seeking processes, assessments of possible misstatements identified, and audit evidence. The analysis of material that comes from the company responsible for preparing the financial statements; in terms of accountability, this translates into the absence of a fault character to be attached to the auditor in the event of failure to detect a material misstatement and not the least because fraud is usually carried out in such a way as to make it difficult for the auditor to identify.

In short, ISAs exist in order to provide guidelines for the execution of good audit processes. They guide the exercise of the auditor's function and protect the professional from absolute responsibilities when it comes to detecting misstatements in financial statements. They end up defining a good incentive by establishing that the issuers of the information are primarily responsible for ensuring their integrity in order words, disincentives the issuance of fraudulent financial statement, with materially misstating errors. The problem lies in the vagueness of the standards that allow for too much judgement which means that there is potentially room for error of interpretation.

The ISA 200 establishes the general objectives of the independent auditor as a professional assurance provider, who must be able to issue an opinion in accordance with what is inferred from the audit process. The auditor is responsible for obtaining assurance that the financial statements analyzed are free from errors (that are not convertible to fraud) and material misstatements. That is, they fairly and reliably represent the financial position of the audited entity. In cases where some misstatements are identified, the auditor should issue a qualified opinion; in situations where it is not possible to ensure reasonable assurance the professional must refrain from expressing an opinion.

ISA 200 mitigates the risk of fraud right from the outset of the auditing. In the normal circumstances, during the high-level overview of the analysis while gaining understanding of the business environment and the initial conclusion for the preliminary planning, the auditor is able to conclude in respect to inherent risks and the detection risks particularly analising the red-flags. This will assist the auditor in the detailed planning process and the initial decision on the confidence level of the internal control risk.

This standard assist auditor in stating concordance with the terms of an audit. Even though the corporate governance is vivid in this moment to cushion pressures auditor and auditee relationships are streamlined in this moment. The contracts are clarified, and the engagement charter properly signed. The Agency theory and the Resource Dependence Theory tries to conflict in this moment as a result of difference in focus. This ISA stipulates the individual responsibilities that shows that the auditing is limited to assessment of financial statements and that it is not materially misstated as a result of errors. Defacto, no mention of fraud is made considering the objective of financial audit, as it is entirely the activity of Forensic Accounting to investigate fraud.

Auditing proposals are tied to hours of the engagement team. Therefore, any signs of intentional errors that result to confirmation of fraud related assertion need to be discussed with the management and even the corporate governance. In effect, assuring that the financial statement is free from significant errors that result to any misstatement.

Quality management is inherent in the process of auditing and designs the planning, review and checkout processes of financial report as free from any traces of significant errors and fraud. The mere choosing of the engagement partner as the one responsible for the financial auditing, in itself, establishes a hierarchy that demands a respect by adhering to standards of review of auditing processes and its accountability. Also, interalia, the interfirm quality review would assure the quality cultivated by the organisation and it recognizes the level of job such firm offers.

ISA 220 mitigates the risk of fraud when the involved partners assures that accountability is supported with compliance with due professional care. In otherwards, applied the necessary auditing procedures when the likelihood of fraud is perceived.

So, in the realm of assurance of risk of fraud, this is implicit in the process which is trailed by the engagement to minimize such risk of fraud, being consistently assessed. PCAOB, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board inspection process, enhances Audit Quality (AQ) (Lamoreaux, 2016) and Raigopel et al (2021). In the same vein, Firm Level and Engagement Review also enhance the quality of auditing meant to reduce the risk of errors.

The recent update in ISA 220 captions the standard as ISQM/ISA-200 to make the process a bit broader to embrace all aspects that would instill confidence and trust in users by guaranteeing quality. PDCA acronym of plan, do, check and act brought to light will ensure a continuous monitoring process that would meet stakeholders` expectation.

ISA 240 is one of the basic standards that guides the auditor's responsibilities when it comes to fraud. Basically, Auditors are not meant to investigate fraud.

However, it is the responsibility of the auditor to perform all the required procedures to certify that the financial statement is free from significant errors that characterized fraud. The professional auditor must carry out analysis in accordance with current regulations to be able to see possible distortions in the reported information. The omission of or detection of inaccuracies can culminate in legal process (although the responsibility for mitigating errors and preventing fraud is that of the management), in the first place, the plans of the management should externalize valuable information to keep stakeholders abreast of the business operation free of material misstatement. In the course of auditor’s performance of analytical procedure at the beginning of the audit the comparison of financial statements is done to weigh the evolution of significant figures within accounting periods. For instance, Red- flags can be identified with verification of variations between the horizontal and vertical analysis of financial statements thereby calling attention for possible errors and probable frauds.

Do we continue to anchor on auditing expectation gap. Is the auditor appointed just to make professional opinions (Ogoun & Odogu, 2020). The society at large is glamouring efficiency in the responsibility of the auditor to investigate the act of fraud during auditing. (Dyck et al., 2008) agree external auditors have a significant role to play in the detection and prevention of fraud. Auditors are transferring responsibilities to the forensic accountant who may be instigated or not by the corporate governance. (Peter et al., 2012) note that the role of auditors in modern times has gone beyond the mere examination and certification of financial statements in respect to their truth and fairness. (Hooks, 1992) marked that the auditing profession has over the years refused to assume responsibility to investigate, detect and prevent fraud, and this is responsible for the expectation gap.

The bone of contention when discussing fraud as the responsibility of the auditor calls for a new look. Noteworthy that, whereas financial statement audit has a budget for its review, fraud investigation is not readily budgeted for. You have the idea about the beginning of fraud, but you do not know the extension and how it ends. Therefore, calls for the clues that would allow the corporate governance, defacto the audit committee to authorize additional investigation for the fieldwork for fraud investigation in order to conclude a financial audit.

In another perspective, the managerial functions could assist in tracking errors and frauds. The fraud monitoring procedures through compliance may be the cornerstone of management safeguard of assets. As monitoring controls are the watchdogs of the adherence to internal control practices, this role may not be indispensable to keep ISAs on track of their mitigation of risk of frauds.

ISA 250 is the second basic standard that nurtures the verification of procedures that guarantees that the financial statement is free from significant errors and frauds arising from illegal acts. Illegal acts are acts of omission or commission, intentional or unintentional, committed by a client, or by those charged with governance, management or employees of a client which are contrary to the prevailing laws or regulations.

Generally known as NOCLAR (Responding to Non-Compliance with Laws and Regulations) is the name coined to depict how to approach accounting error that is done whether purposely or by pressure by the accountant that requires the auditor to perform additional reviews. These reviews whether by the auditor or the forensic accountant, intends to perform specific procedures in order to guide auditor judgement.

Since these standard calls for the compliance of the higher echelon with regards to adherence to monitoring procedures or overriding of control procedures, the auditors need to verify such procedures. This is generally done by exercising corroboratory inquiry and interviews with the top management with the participation of senior member of the audit team.

Materiality places a guidance on selection of test for a monetary precision by stipulating a range of concern. What is material to the preparer and significant in the eyes of the auditors, this is normally sorted out with many problems between auditor and the auditee.

ISA 320 mitigates the risk of fraud when the dispute on whether materiality should be made known to the client or not is tabled. In that the perpetrator could conceal the fraud below the materiality threshold. Materiality as we know is the yardstick of the extension of tests so, if the intension is to make it unknown to the client, it is wise to keep the threshold only known to the audit team as one does not know where the fraud will emanate.

The evaluation of the misstatement at the end of audit is important in order to weigh the impact of errors or even frauds, the facto their significance on the financial statement. Generally, through the end-of-audit analytical procedures, the auditor ascertains and correlates in order to give opinion. This is a tense moment of the audit. The auditor does not want to skip any material misstatement as a result of error and neither the top management would like to have a significant adjustment as a result of material error. “How would you explain to the stakeholders who have followed the cleared periodic reports and now at the end of the fiscal period be served with significant adjustment”. The creative accounting becomes a nightmare to the auditors in this moment of the audit of evaluating the misstatement that could lead to significant error or fraud. “Every set of published accounts is based on books which have been gently cooked or completely roasted. The figures which are fed twice a year to the investing public have all been changed in order to protect the guilty” (Griffiths, 1986).

With the growing application of accounting estimates in this era of technology and environmental sustainability unethical accounting estimate with fraudulent intentions may be in the cooking.

(Smieliauskas et al., 2016) observe that estimates sticking to ethical blindness can have an escalating effect that corrupts not only an individual or organization but also the accounting profession and the public interest it serves.

The management may attempt to overstate or understate any potential fraud areas best known to them. A clarification of such risk may depend on the expert because of differences in the interpretation of accounting standards and the management may intend to explore this avenue.

The use of experts’ service and also the internal audit reports certainly reduce the job load of the independent auditor. In this cause of the use of these services in which financial auditor does not have full competence, auditing is relieved of risks. Defacto, verify consistencies in the approach followed when an auditor places reliance on the work of another auditor or an auditor's expert.

In respect of ISA 620, auditors have been challenged as having a myopic approach in areas they do not dominate. Therefore, ISA 620 reduces the risk of perpetrators exploring this vaccum of auditing knowledge.

In representing that the financial statements are presented fairly in conformity with GAAP, management implicitly or explicitly makes assertions regarding the recognition, measurement, presentation, and disclosure of the various elements of financial statements and related disclosures including significant errors that characterizes fraud. Thus, in the course of this the final analytical procedures and risk assessments are presented, obtaining a representation (“management rep”) letter, final evaluation of audit differences, evaluation of representation and disclosure assertions, final working paper and independent review and the evaluation of the entity as a going concern.

So, upon completion of the assurance (Audit) negotiations do arise before any adjustments could be made considering the relevance (material misstatement) of differences that are evaluated in the phase of whether the differences where intentional (is fraud present); what are the related implications (RMM); and is the difference an error or a judgmental difference? In otherwards, upon negotiating on the materiality of adjustments, the auditor is already observing the origins of the errors, intentions and the possibilities of fraudulent misstatements.

On how to report irregularities requires the auditor to explain to what extent the auditing was performed considering capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud.

In light of the content analysis, we now assess how the ISA guidelines has been framed towards the ideology of numbers; “leaving at bay the aspects of fraud” defacto, “the Achille heels of societal risk of misappropriation of assets not protected”. Thus, borrowing a leaf from Statements of Auditing Standards 99 analyzed jointly with ISA 240, we are forced to agree that the standards do provide for the mediation of assurance in auditing standards through mitigation of risk of frauds within the scope of work of auditing teams.

The auditor is sure to maintain the expectation of the stakeholder or the shareholders. In view of this, the auditor tends to create credibility with its works, it is always in oscillation towards encroachment of auditing expectation gap. For instance, the Brazilian Institute of Independent Auditors (IBRACON) has publicized a guidance “Mind the Gap” in view of attaining this objective of mitigation of risks of fraud.

Insofar as the ISA tries to favour a set of firms (organsations) who suppress fraud actions in the business operations or auditor for a miniature approach, the main motivations of assurance would not have been met. The ISA standard would therefore be creating a limited scope of fraud coverage. (Journeault et al., 2021) in sustainability reporting by showing how GRI guidelines, legitimized and reinforced through their institutionalization, tend to create a limited scope and incomplete picture of the organisation’s sustainability performance reporting.

As the auditor reports to the corporate governance, when cases of errors which could be interpreted as fraud surfaces, in certain circumstances the CG may create barriers for additional audit jobs to elucidate significant accounting errors. The principal reason for this would be the corporate governance conceptual frameworks' ineffectiveness (Source not found, n.d.).

In another perspective, a trap could be set for the assurance team unbeknownst to the auditor if the management has a fraudulent intention. However, if the auditor is knowledgeable enough to use all the risk assessment rules of thumb as proposed by ISA there could be a plot twist. The question, therefore, emanates if the management has an influence in the corporate governance.