Celebrity chef Marcus Wareing fell prey to a criminal gang who flew in from South America and ransacked his home in a £33,000 raid.

The Michelin-starred restaurateur’s £5 million house in Wimbledon was targeted by thieves who struck when he and his wife Jane were away.

The “burglary tourists” had flown from Chile just days before the raid. They smashed their way through first-floor patio doors and rifled through the couple’s possessions in the master bedroom.

Wareing, a judge on the BBC’s MasterChef: The Professionals, lost a gold Rolex, two Omega watches worth more than £12,000, and another watch which had been engraved with “Hell’s Kitchen”, Kingston crown court heard.

The chef’s wife lost jewellery including bracelets, earrings, gold chains, a £1,500 Cartier watch, a £520 pair of Christian Louboutin shoes and a treasured locket containing pictures of her father and uncle when they were young.

The court heard the value of the stolen items and damage to the home was £33,711.

Danko Carvajal-Donaire, 20, Claudio Donoso, 20, Nicolas Portilla Astorga, 27, and Jorge Rojas, 22, were captured days after the raid in October last year while on their way to another burglary.

Rojas was wearing a stolen gold pendant belonging to Mrs Wareing, while detectives discovered a picture of Carvajal-Donaire and Astorga posing with some of the jewellery.

Judge Jonathan Davies sentenced all four men to three years and four months in prison, saying they had “heaped misery” on the Wareings.

The judge warned: “No one here or abroad should be under an illusion that somehow the UK is a soft touch.” He told the defendants: “Each of you came to this country with one purpose — crime. No other reason for your visit to the UK has been offered to me.”

In-and-out of the UK in days: The burglary tourists Marcus Wareing is the latest to fall victim to “burglary tourism”, a trend of foreign criminals being flown into the UK to carry out crime sprees. Wealthy Britons are being targeted by South American gangs, mainly from Chile, which bring in low-level criminals to break into homes in affluent neighbourhoods around London and the Home Counties. The thieves are recruited in their home country and put on a flight to the UK, where they meet a contact who gives them a car and phones. Homes in suburbs like Wimbledon Village have been pre-selected as targets, with the burglars given instructions on how to beat security alarms, where to enter properties and which valuables to hunt for. The criminals can be hard to catch as they arrive just days before the thefts, are not on and police databases and leave the country soon after. The Met set up Operation Genie after a spate of burglaries in 2017, suspecting that South American gangs were being the break-ins. Other police forces have followed suit, using numberplate cameras to identify cars being used and targeting foreign thieves who snatch luggage from baggage carousels at airports.

In a victim statement, Mrs Wareing described the losses they suffered as “enormous” and told the court they had been forced to spend much of the insurance money on additional security. “The loss of the jewellery and watches is deeply upsetting,” she added.

Judge Davies said three orange dots had been sprayed on to the back fence of the Wareings’ home in advance of the raid, to identify it to the four burglars as a high-value property. He added: “I mention that so others are made aware to be on their guard if they see such markings.”

The court heard the Wareings had left London for their second home in Kent when the break-in happened, on the night of October 11 last year.

“The master bedroom had been broken in to and their possessions had been strung out all over the floor,” said prosecutor Christiaan Moll.

“There had been an untidy search of that room, which is on the first floor. A double patio door which leads to a large balcony was smashed and there was glass on the bedroom floor.”

Wareing, a protégé of Gordon Ramsay who runs three top London restaurants including Tredwells in Covent Garden, and his wife have recovered only one stolen item — the pendant that Rojas was found with.

Surrey Police stopped their car in Banstead en route to another burglary. The thieves were staying in a property in Thornton Heath, intended as the base for their UK crime spree, and they later admitted being recruited to fly to the UK to commit burglaries.

They all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burgle and going equipped to steal, and are likely to be deported while serving their sentences.

Wareing said: “We are pleased that the men have been caught and would like to thank Wimbledon police for assisting us during this time. They made us feel safe and secure again in our home and were utterly brilliant.”