Chile hands watches stolen from Reeves over to FBI

Chilean authorities say they have turned six valuable watches stolen from Canadian actor Keanu Reeves over to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, months after recovering them in a police raid.

The FBI will arrange for their return to Reeves, best known for his roles in movie franchises like The Matrix and John Wick.

Chilean prosecutors told reporters that Reeves had identified the watches as those stolen from his Los Angeles home during a string of high-profile burglaries in December 2023.

The announcement was made as the US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem arrived in Chile for meetings with the country's officials about transnational crime, among other issues.

Noem was also the victim of a robbery attributed to a Chilean citizen residing illegally in the US, when her purse was stolen last April at a Washington DC restaurant.

Reeves' six watches are valued at a total of $US125,000 ($A192,000), according to police officer Marcelo Varas from Chile's robbery investigation squad.

The watches stolen from Reeves' Hollywood Hills home - including an engraved Rolex worth at least $US9500 - turned up in Chile's capital Santiago when police raided homes and uncovered stolen cars, iPhones, luxury watches and designer purses.

That operation coincided with another Chilean investigation, co-ordinated with the FBI, into a spate of burglaries by South America-based crime groups targeting multimillion-dollar homes in the US, many belonging to celebrities and professional athletes such as Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce.

In April, police in Chile announced the arrest of 23 citizens over the string of break-ins.

Varas said authorities were still investigating any link between the theft of Reeves' watches and the other high-profile burglaries.