Gang members jailed over UK's biggest burglary spree targeting celebrities including Tamara Ecclestone and Frank Lampard

Jay Rutland and Tamara Ecclestone. Picture: David Fisher/Shutterstock

Italian nationals Jugoslav Jovanovic, 24, Alessandro Maltese, 45, and Alessandro Donati, 44, were behind three raids in west London over just 13 days in December 2019.

Victims included former Chelsea FC midfielder and manager Frank Lampard, 43, and his 42-year-old television presenter wife Christine, the late Leicester City FC owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, and socialite Tamara Ecclestone.

Ms Ecclestone, 37, the daughter of ex-Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, was on holiday in Lapland with her husband, art gallery owner Jay Rutland, 38, their daughter and their dog when their mansion in Palace Green, Kensington, was raided on December 13.

Hundreds of items of jewellery, cash, diamonds and precious stones worth £25m were stolen from the 2,000 square-foot property, which is spread over six floors, in what is believed to have been the country’s biggest ever domestic burglary.

Police said the gang were believed to have carried out similar crimes against high-profile victims across Europe and had planned to commit further raids on the rich and famous in the UK.

Detectives have not revealed the identities of other potential victims, who did not know how close they came to being burgled as the thieves carried out reconnaissance missions and dummy runs.

Jovanovic, Maltese and Donati were extradited from Italy and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burgle between November 29 and December 18, 2019 over the three raids.

Jovanovic also admitted conspiracy to commit money laundering between December 10, 2019 and January 31 last year, and one count of attempting to convert criminal property.

He was jailed for 11 years by Judge Martin Edmunds QC at Isleworth Crown Court on Monday, while Maltese and Donati were each sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison.

The men, who were brought to court under armed police guard as a helicopter flew overhead, will return to Italy to serve their sentences following proceeds of crime proceedings in the UK.

The judge told them: “The fact that each burglary was accomplished despite the precautions of the householders, that so much was stolen and then, it is to be inferred, removed from the country and not recovered speaks to the overall organisation, planning and criminal determination, together with a willingness to take chances.”

The judge said the gang had chosen their targets because of the “celebrity of their occupiers”.

A fourth member of the gang, Daniel Vukovic, 44, believed to be a Serbian national who uses a string of aliases, fled to the capital Belgrade, where he is still thought to be following a failed extradition bid. The Lampards had around £60,000 in watches and jewellery stolen while they were out of their Chelsea property on December 1.

On December 10, the gang targeted Mr Srivaddhanaprabha’s Knightsbridge home, which had been turned into a shrine by his family following his death, aged 60, in a helicopter crash shortly after take-off from the King Power Stadium on October 27, 2018.

Among more than £1m in property stolen was a TAG Heuer watch he was wearing before he left for Leicester that day.