COMEDIAN Ricky Gervais has made fun of a scam by a Plymouth man to steal £200,000 by pretending to be his famous The Office character.

Former city shelf-stacker, Craig Reeves, was sent to prison in 2005 for two years after being found guilty of two fraud charges along with accomplice Kenneth Speight.

At the time London's Wood Green Crown Court heard how Reeves was part of a gang of five men who were accused of stealing the identity of the millionaire comic to buy 27 kilos of gold using his fortune.

The forgers stuck a photograph of Ricky's character from the sitcom, David Brent, on to a dead pensioner's passport in a bid to pull off the scam.

A hooded gang member even convinced a lawyer that he was the real Ricky before paying £15 to have a copy of the passport authenticated.

The sting was foiled when a fan of The Office at East London bullion dealer Baird and Co realised he was talking to a fake Ricky and called the police.

Speaking for the first time about the scam Gervais, 48, recalled the conversation he had with a police officer.

"I said, 'How did they think they were going to get away with it?'

"He said, 'They normally get a passport from either a dead man or steal one and replace it with your details and your picture.' The CID man started smirking, so I went, 'What?' and he showed me this passport.

"We were laughing for 10 minutes. All they did was cut out the picture on the first series of The Office DVD – so it's a picture of David Brent sitting at a desk with that little smug look on his face!"

The Extras star got his money back following the scam.

Ricky added: "Can you imagine who was in charge of getting the photo? 'Dave, you're doing so and so. Julie, you're on the inside. Bertie – can you get a picture? What are you going to HMV for?'"

Sentencing the gang in 2005, Judge Mervyn Roberts told Reeves: "This was an extremely serious conspiracy to defraud and you must expect that I can do nothing but impose an immediate term of imprisonment.

"Reeves, it is deplorable that you should be appearing in this court.

"You are a man of good character and mature years and have led hitherto a life of industry and honest reward, but you chose to get yourself involved in this conspiracy to defraud involving a large amount of money."

At the time Reeves was living with his four-months-pregnant girlfriend in Plymouth. He was also charged with a second identical sting in which a doctor and his wife were fleeced.

Ricky talks about the fiddle on The Ricky Gervais Guide to Law and Order Podcast on iTunes.