A fan of comic Ricky Gervais foiled a bid to buy gold bars with a £200,000 fortune plundered from his bank account, a court heard.

The prosecution claims a gang of identity fraudsters forged the comic's passport and used it to steal money from his bank account.

They tried to buy gold bars, but the dealer became suspicious, the court heard.

Mushtaq Javed, 43, of Ashdown Drive, Crawley, is accused of taking part in the scam with three other men and a woman. Javed is head of the Express Despatch bullion courier company in Redhill, Surrey, where two of the other defendants worked.

Bullion dealer Anthony Baird became suspicious when somebody claiming to be the star of The Office comedy series rang to buy a large consignment of gold bars.

The businessman called the police, who staked out his east London firm.

Two courier company workers arrived to collect the 27kg haul and were arrested.

A forged passport in the actor's name was found in their van, London's Wood Green Crown Court heard.

John Dodd, prosecuting, said the passport photograph bore a "remarkable similarity" to a promotional shot of the actor on an Office DVD.

He said: "It would seem Mr Baird was something of a fan of Mr Gervais because it was as a result of his suspicions that police were alerted to this attempted fraud as it was unfolding."

The court heard that the spotlight of suspicion began to shine "overwhelmingly" on bank worker Sharonjeet Snober, 28, of Arthur Shirley Road, Southampton.

The barrister said she had repeatedly identified wealthy customers who were abroad and might not miss their money immediately.

He said as a result, £127,000 was transferred from the account of Amein Darwish and his wife, who lived in Saudi Arabia at the time, and used to buy 18kg of gold from another dealer.

He discovered what had happened only after he rang his bank in Chichester to transfer £10,000 to his brother and found it had been drained.

His money was first used to buy 13 kilograms of bullion from City-based Gold Investments Limited.

But a bid to further fleece the account holder of £30,000 was foiled by alert counter staff.

The barrister told the court that while the gold the gang got away with had never been found, their haul would have been much greater but for the alert bullion company owner.

Mr Dodd also alleges that Snober altered customer's computer records so that the contact telephone numbers switched to those of the fraudsters.

As a result, he said, when bank workers tried to call Mr Gervais to check he had authorised the £200,000 purchase of gold bars they actually called the con artists.

Before the court are Snober and Javed; jobless Kenneth Speight, 39, originally from Erith, Kent, but now of no fixed address, Craig Reeves, 30 of West Lodge Cottage, Alton, Hampshire and Harry Peach, 57, of Fairfield Walk, Leatherhead, Surrey.

All five variously deny three counts of conspiracy to defraud between February 21 and April 8, 2003.

The case continues.