Wells Fargo has been accused of staging sham job interviews for women and people of color in order to  boost diversity numbers, The New York Times reported Thursday.

A former executive at the bank who claims he was fired after complaining about the incident to his superiors, said that the interviews were being carried out for positions that had already been promised to others.

Joe Bruno, who was an executive in the wealth management division at Wells Fargo’s corporate offices in Jacksonville, Florida, told The Times that he was asked to leave the company last summer after he flagged the issue.

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Bruno said that he told his superiors that the “fake interviews” were “inappropriate, morally wrong, ethically wrong,” according to the Times.

Shares of Wells Fargo were trading down more than 1% as of 11 a.m. EST on Thursday.

Wells Fargo claimed that it let Bruno go for retaliating against a colleague.

Bruno and seven current and former bank employees claimed they were told by their bosses to interview a set of “diverse” candidates even though they would not be getting the job.

A Wells Fargo spokesperson told Insider in a statement that the company “could not corroborate the claims as factual.”

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“At the same time, we take the nature of the allegations in the story seriously and, as a company, we do not tolerate the type of conduct alleged,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue our internal review and if we find evidence of inappropriate behavior or shortcomings in our guidelines or their implementation, we will take decisive action.”

A Wells Fargo spokesperson told the Times that Bruno was fired for retaliating against a colleague.