An Essex woman stashed two gold bars from a £1 million Belgium heist in her bra, the Old Bailey heard on Thursday in a trial which will see two The Only Way Is Essex stars testify on behalf of their stepfather.
Local police struck gold when they searched Sheron Mancini, 53, as she drove towards a ferry for Britain, jurors were told.
Mancini had earlier left a hotel room in Antwerp where officers found more stolen gold and silver bars in October last year, said John Price, QC, prosecuting.
Price explained to the jury that: "When Ms Mancini was searched there was found, concealed in her bra, two gold ingots."
"Ms Mancini could provide no sensible innocent explanation for its discovery so concealed in her underwear, for in truth, there could be none," Price said.
Two 'iPhone-sized' ingots were stuffed in Mancini's bra
The ingots came from a missing consignment belonging to Swiss company Metalor, given away by their being wrapped in a Metalor plastic bag.
"The gold was in ingot form, gold bars, the largest weighing 1kg, approximately the proportions of a large iPhone, but a bit fatter," said Price.
Six British men, including Mancini's accomplices David Gale, 55, and David Chatwood, 58, both of Essex, have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal.
Chatwood is the step-father of The Only Way Is Essex cast members Sam and Billie Faiers and the two sisters will appear as witnesses in the case.
With their stepfather on trial, TOWIE cast members Sam and Billie Faiers are set to testify
Later, Price claimed that although the bullion was stolen from a lorry in Belgium earlier in the month, it was a "British job".
The plot was unravelled when the lorry's driver, Brian Mulcahy, admitted to being the inside man who helped the theft.
Mulcahy had originally told police he had been made to drive to a service area by a gunman with an eastern European accent whose armed accomplices took his cargo, the court heard.
Price concluded that: "This was, if you will, a crime 'Made in Britain', carried out in Belgium and blamed on east Europeans."
Mancini, of Parkfields, Roydon, Harlow, Essex, John Corley, 52, of Tankerton Road, Whitstable, Kent, Kyriacos Nicolas, 30, of The Chine, Winchmore Hill, north London, and his father Andreas, 50, of Bankesmead, Duxford, Cambridgeshire, deny conspiring to launder the proceeds of crime.