Purpose The study aims to explore specific motivations, rationalizations and opportunities that are involved in the occurrences of both employee and management fraud in the context of an emerging African country, Tanzania. It builds and extends from the fraud triangle theory. Design/methodology/approach A survey was developed and administered to 114 participants who had witnessed, had examined or had been involved in fraud resolutions. The participants included fraud examiners, business managers and owners, victims, auditors, lawyers, and law enforcement agents. The data collected were analysed using descriptive analysis, principal component analysis and correlation analysis. Findings The results revealed six motivation factors that incentivize employees and managers to engage in fraudulent behaviours. These are business financial strain, social incentives and pressure, greed, operating problems, internal pressures and malevolent work environment. In addition, fraudsters rationalized their behaviour through five significant neutralization techniques identified as social weighting, transferring of blame, denial of injury, attitude and prior fraud history. Lastly, victim organisations were identified to have three main fraud opportunities: poor control environment, inadequate control activities and circumstances that allowed collusive behaviour among fraudsters. Research limitations/implications While the study attempted to explore the motivations, opportunities and rationalizations from the perspectives of the fraud-fighting professionals and witnesses, their views and suggestions might be different from the actual known fraudsters or incarcerated individuals. Practical implications Business organisations, fraud-fighting professionals and general community must understand the factors behind fraud occurrences, so proper measures may be taken to limit the frequency and amount of fraud losses. Social implications Creation of public awareness and dialogue necessary for the prevention, fighting and deterrence against all forms of fraud. Originality/value Despite the occurrences of many scams in both public and private sectors, limited studies exist as to the triggers behind fraud occurrences in the context of the developing countries and whether these triggers are the same as in other contexts. This study is an attempt to fill this gap.