An Italian actor who played a wannabe gangster in the film Gomorrah has been accused of posing as a police officer as part of a nationwide scam to fleece more than €700,000 (£585,000) from the elderly.

Marco Macor, 39, was among 29 people arrested by Genoa police at the weekend for his alleged involvement in the elaborate scheme, in which the group masqueraded as officers or lawyers to cheat people out of their savings and jewellery.

With the help of a fake call centre, the Neapolitan gang used operators to phone victims before introducing an officer or lawyer who informed them that one of their family members had been involved in an accident, urgently requiring funds to avoid arrest.

Col Alessandro Magro, the provincial commander of the Genova Carabinieri police, said many of the elderly were distraught after receiving the calls.

“They had a sense of guilt if they didn’t help their relatives,” he told RaiNews. “Under Italian law, there is nothing that requires you to pay a deposit to avoid arrest or being charged.”

Elderly left distraught

Mr Macor is best known for his role as Marco in the 2008 film Gomorrah, which was inspired by the Roberto Saviano’s novel of the same name.

The book provides an account of the criminal activities of the Camorra in Naples’s Campania region and the film won a Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival before later being turned into a TV series.

Marco – Mr Macor’s character – and his friend Ciro are aspiring gangsters who start their own racket to compete with a mafia clan just outside of Naples. They quote lines and recreate scenes from classic films such as Scarface throughout.

In one scene, Marco and his friends are shown shooting machine guns on an empty beach.