JERSEY CITY, March 21 — There's the holdup, and then there's the push-up. Now this: Three people made off with nearly $12,000 worth of bras and panties at a Victoria's Secret at the Newport Center Mall here as customers milled about on Tuesday night.

The police said that about 7:30 p.m. two men and a woman wearing a puffy white coat grabbed dozens of undergarments from roll-out drawers on two display tables and stuffed the merchandise into large "booster bags" (shopping bags lined with aluminum foil), which investigators say thwart the sensors in anti-theft systems.

In all, the police said, the take was $6,921 worth of panties and $4,905 in bras.

"That's a lot of underwear," said Lt. Edgar Martinez, a spokesman for the Jersey City Police Department.