The story begins outside Cairo where Okra (Akim Tamiroff), using a bikini-clad accomplice (Maria Grazia Buccella) as a distraction, hijacks $3 million in gold bullion. The thieves need a way to smuggle the two tons of gold bars into Europe. There are only four master criminals considered capable of smuggling the gold but each is ruled out: a Frenchman is so crippled he can barely move his wheelchair; an Irishman is so nearsighted he is arrested trying to hold up a police station instead of a bank; a German is so fat he can barely get through a door to escape; and an Italian, Aldo Vanucci (Peter Sellers), a master of disguise known as The Fox, but who is in prison.