Access Bank has resorted to underhanded tactics in its bid to take down FIJ’s publication on Stephen Ejezie, a former staff who secretly recorded hundreds of video clips of his colleagues naked in the office’s bathrooms.

Until his dismissal in April, Ejezie used to work at Access Bank’s contact centre in Oniru, Lagos, as a quality assessor specialist.

He was caught in the female restroom at the contact centre around 1:30 am on Wednesday, secretly recording a colleague. Many more videos were found on his mobile devices, and he was arrested.

On Saturday, FIJ published a report on the incident, drawing attention to concerns of workers who thought that, although Ejezie had been dismissed, he might not be prosecuted for his actions and justice would elude them.

READ MORE: INSIDER: Access Bank’s Stephen Ejezie Secretly Filmed 400 Videos of Naked Colleagues in Office. Still, He’s a Free Man

ACCESS BANK’S DARK ARTS

Following the publication, Access Bank emailed web hosting company Cloudflare to accuse FIJ of “trademark abuse” in a bid to force the report off the Internet.

Access Bank’s demands were delivered to Cloudflare in an email sent by CyberSOC-CERT Deloitte, detailed to “act on behalf of Access Bank PLC to detect, seek and remove malicious content impacting the bank”.

In its email on Sunday, CyberSOC-CERT said it handles cyber-crime incidents against the bank, including everything related to the unauthorised use of trademark assets. Acting on behalf of the bank, it asked FIJ to remove the report as soon as possible.

The email reads in part: “This letter is an official notification as requested by our client and legal owner of the mentioned trademark. We are acting on behalf of the legitimate owner and asking for your cooperation in the removal of this content.”

CLOUDFLARE’S REMOVAL NOTICE TO FIJ

Acting on the email, Cloudflare then wrote FIJ as follows:

“Hello,

“Cloudflare received a Trademark Infringement complaint regarding: fij[.]ng

“The information we received was the following:

“Reporter’s Name: CyberSOC CERT EMEA Center (Deloitte)
“Reporter’s Email Address: [email protected]
“Reporter’s Title: Trademark abuse
“Reporter’s Company Name: Access Bank PLC

“Reported URLs: hxxps://fij[.]ng/article/insider-access-banks-stephen-ejezie-secretly-filmed-400-videos-of-naked-colleagues-in-office-still-hes-a-free-man/-HzhaeJYBjRMz9svdTbt7

“Original Work: Trademarked Symbol: Access Bank
“Registration Number: MZ/L/2019/002029
“Registration Office: WIPO
“Logs or Evidence of Abuse: Hello Support Team,

“CyberSOC-CERT Deloitte handles cyber-crime incidents against our clients including everything related to the unauthorized use of our client's trademark assets.

“Trademark: Access Bank PLC
“Trademark Country: Mozambique
“Trademark Registration Number: MZ/L/2019/002029
“Service Category: Other
“Trademark Registration “URL: https://branddb.wipo.int/en/similarlogo/brand/MZ50201900L002029
“Trademark Owner: Access Bank PLC
“Owner Address: Rua 1233,n72c, Edificio Hollard
“Official Website: https://www.accessbankplc.com/
“https://twitter.com/myaccessbank
“https://www.instagram.com/myaccessbank
“https://www.facebook.com/AccessBankPlMZ/T/2020/040835

“We have detected a trademark abuse in the domain.

“IP:

“Affected URL: https[:]//fij[.]ng/article/insider-access-banks-stephen-ejezie-secretly-filmed-400-videos-of-naked-colleagues-in-office-still-hes-a-free-man/
“Trademark: Access Bank

“This letter is an official notification as requested by our client and legal owner of the mentioned trademark. We are acting on behalf of the legitimate owner and asking for your cooperation in the removal of this content.

“If you receive this email it means that, to the best of our knowledge, you are responsible of the aforementioned domain and/or market. If that's not the case, please excuse us for the mistake.

“Help us to make the Internet a safer place by removing the fraudulent content as soon as possible.

“For further information, please contact our SOC 24/7.

“Best Regards,

—————————–
CyberSOC CERT EMEA Center (Deloitte)
Tel: +34914381284
[email protected]
C/ Dulce Chacon, 55, 28050, Madrid, Spain | www.deloitte.es

“We have provided the name of your hosting provider to the reporter. We have forwarded this complaint to your hosting provider.

“To respond to this issue, please reply to [email protected].

“Thanks, The Cloudflare Team.”

READ ALSO: Customer’s Transaction Failed, but Access Bank Kept Her N700,000 for 3 Months

PUBLIC ANGST AGAINST ACCESS BANK

After the incident went viral on social media, many Nigerians expressed disappointment at the bank.

Two days after FIJ’s story, the management of Access Bank PLC issued a statement via its X page, on Monday morning, to say it was cooperating with law enforcement authorities and that it had a zero-tolerance policy towards harassment and any form of privacy violation.

“We are aware of reports regarding an alleged privacy violation involving a former Contact Centre agent,” it said.

“We are working closely with the relevant authorities and remain committed to upholding the highest standards of safety and privacy for our employees and customers.”

NOT THE FIRST TIME

It is not the first time a powerful institution has employed this strategy in pulling down an FIJ story, the most relentless having come from Landwey, a real estate investment company whose ponzi-like operation was exposed by FIJ.

While Landwey temporarily succeeded with DigitalOcean, a similar attempt with Cloudflare fell flat as FIJ succeeded in proving to be the rightful owner of the disputed content.