'Gang robbed Ricky Gervais of £200,000'

Comedian Ricky Gervais had £200,000 siphoned from his bank account by a fraud gang, a court heard today.

The fraudsters used the money, taken with the help of a bank insider, in an attempt to buy massive amounts of gold bullion, it was claimed.

The gang had already plundered a doctor's savings to buy two gold shipments before using a forgery of the actor's passport in a bid to collect another consignment, Wood Green Crown Court heard.

But when two of them turned up to collect 27kg of the gold, they were arrested.

The court heard the fraud against the star of The Office began when someone pretending to be him faxed his Charing Cross bank branch asking for ?195,480 to be transferred to Baird & Company, a gold bullion dealer in Stratford.

Prosecutor John Dodd said: "When one of the bank staff rang the number recorded on the database as a Gervais contact number - it had been changed to a false one - the bank was reassured by the conman who answered.

"The money was moved ... and arrangements made for the bullion to be collected by courier." But suspicions had been raised and police were waiting at the firm's offices.

When defendant Harry Peach went in and handed over documents including a fake authorisation signed by the actor and a photocopied UK passport in his name, he was arrested. A second alleged conspirator, Craig Reeves, was waiting in a van outside with a forged passport in Gervais's name made from someone else's expired travel documents, the court heard.

Mr Dodd said the fingerprints of all five defendants were on either the forged passport or the photocopy. On trial are Sharonjeet Snober, 28, of Southampton, Kenneth Speight, 39, of no fixed address, and courier firm boss Mushtaq Javed, 43, of Crawley. Also in the dock are two of his workers, Reeves, 30, of Alton, Hampshire, and Harry Peach, 57, of Leatherhead, Surrey. All five deny conspiracy to defraud between February and April 2003.

Mr Dodd said Snober, an assistant manager at a NatWest call centre in Southampton, was the key to the fraud. He said her first victim, Dr Amein Darwish, who lives in Saudi Arabia with his wife Janet, found £127,000 missing from his NatWest accounts in Chichester when he phoned the bank's call centre in March 2003.

Someone claiming to be him had arranged for the money to be transferred to Gold Investments Limited, a firm of City bullion dealers, and used to buy 18kg of gold which was never recovered, said Mr Dodd.

The case continues.