A British student concealed thousands of pounds in her underwear at Heathrow airport in an attempt to smuggle money to jihadist rebels in Syria, a court has heard.

Nawal Msaad, 26, had €20,000 (£16,300) when she was stopped by police while trying to board a flight to Turkey on 16 January, the Old Bailey was told.

Prosecutors claim Msaad was recruited by her friend Amal El-Wahabi, 27, to take the money to El-Wahabi's husband, who was fighting with jihadist groups in Syria. Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, said the €20,000 had been collected in Britain and was "destined to support the jihadist cause" in Syria.

Msaad, a human resources student at London Metropolitan University, was promised a reward of €1,000 if she successfully smuggled the money to an intermediary in Istanbul "in circumstances of secrecy and mutual trust", jurors were told.

Msaad was stopped by police at Heathrow's Terminal 5 as she went to board the 9.40am British Airways flight to Istanbul on 16 January. She told officers she was going to Turkey for a short break, and wanted to buy gold for her mother, the court heard.

Asked how much cash she had, Msaad said she had €20,000 "around me". She was then taken by counter-terrorism officers to a private room, jurors were told, where she pulled a roll of banknotes from her underwear, comprising 38 €500 notes, four €200 notes and two €100 notes. Dennis said some of the money had been wrapped in a condom and placed inside her body.

Msaad's active role was "as a trusted courier, collecting and carrying the large sum of money, concealing it on the journey and then ensuring that the money was handed to the correct person at the end of the journey for the purposes for which it had been smuggled", Dennis said.

El-Wahabi's husband, Aine Davis, 30, was fighting alongside rebels in Syria. Davis provided El-Wahabi with Turkish and Syrian mobile phone numbers when he left London to pursue jihadism last year, the court heard.

Dennis said it was plain from pictures David sent to El-Wahabi that he had "fulfilled his desire and was now with jihadist fighters and was supporting the familiar black flag adopted by the extremist jihadist terrorist groups" in the Middle East.

Msaad and El-Wahabi sat in a glass-encased dock. They are the first British women to be prosecuted over the Syrian conflict. The pair deny a charge of being involved in an arrangement from 13-16 January in which "they knew or had reasonable cause to suspect that it would or may be used for the purposes of terrorism".

Jurors heard how the alleged plot came together in a series of Whatsapp messages between El-Wahabi and Msaad in the days before the student was due to fly to Istanbul with the money.

Following a seven-minute call with Davis, El-Wahabi messaged Msaad on 13 January to ask: "Hay bbz r u bussy (sic) dis week … U wana do a job", to which Msaad replied that she was "up to my neck in uni work … What's it for?", the court heard. El-Wahabi is then said to have answered: "ok … I will call u l8r, explain u have 2 go away for 2 days n get paid a grand bt in euros n everything is covered for u".

Jurors heard that call records show El-Wahabi sent Davis a message saying "Think I have some1" before a short telephone conversation with him. El-Wahabi then messaged Msaad: "I asked you cuz I trust u" followed by a reply from Msaad: "What's this about??". El-Wahabi replied: "Can't explain on dis" before exchanging a series of further calls and messages with Davis in Syria and Msaad, who booked her flight and hotel in Istanbul the following evening, the court heard.

Counter-terrorism officers discovered reams of extremist material that "indicated support for the violent jihadist cause" after arresting El-Wahabi at her home in north-west London, the court heard. Speeches by radical clerics Anwar al-Awlaki and Abu Hamza were found on an iPod at El-Wahabi's house, jurors heard, as well as videos featuring Osama Bin Laden and celebrating martyrs and violent jihadists in Somalia. At her sister's house detectives also uncovered various jihadist material, including a video showing roadside bombings and glorifying the actions of mujahideen militants, the court heard.

The prosecutor said: "It may well be that all this jihadist material emanated from Davis and had been gathered by him in recent years and left behind when he finally decided to answer the call to jihad. However, it plainly serves to demonstrate where his beliefs and sympathies lay.

"Furthermore, the fact that such material was left behind on various devices at both addresses serves to demonstrate that he was not a person who saw any need to hide his support for the cause in which he now believed."

Dennis said El-Wahabi "knew full well" that her husband was waging jihad in Syria because he had sent her a series of pictures of himself posing with guns alongside other armed rebels. Davis also sent his wife a "boy martyr" video in September last year showing a boy aged between 10 and 13 holding a Kalashnikov rifle in a "promotion of the jihadist cause", the court heard.

The trial continues.