Four men have been jailed after they raided the home of celebrity chef Marcus Wareing.
Danko Carvajal-Donaire, 20, Claudio Donoso, 20, Nicolas Portilla Astorga, 27, and Jorge Rojas, 22, broke into the Michelin-starred restaurateur’s multimillion-pound home in October last year.
The men, all Chilean nationals, admitted conspiring together to trespass with intent to steal at the house in Wimbledon, south-west London.
A court official confirmed that the men were each sentenced to 40 months in jail when they appeared at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday.
Mr Wareing, who is a judge on BBC show MasterChef: The Professionals, praised the police for their handling of the case.
He said: “We are pleased that the men have been caught and would like to thank the Wimbledon police for assisting us during this time.
“They made us feel safe and secure again in our home and were utterly brilliant.”
The break-in is the latest in a pattern of burglaries by South American thieves whom the Metropolitan Police suspect are flown into the country by an organised network thought to be behind hundreds of such crimes.
The Metropolitan Police’s investigation, known as Operation Genie, began after a spate of burglaries in the south-west London and Surrey areas in 2017.
Typically the thieves targeted unoccupied addresses situated in rural areas, often near parks or golf courses.