Sorry to hear what happened.
Prior to many Tournaments starting, the TD makes an announcement to state that anyone found harvesting Chips will receive automatic disqualification. I know that at the WSOP 2016 Tournaments at the Rio, that an announcement was made.
At the Grosvenor, Manchester Casino early last Month, a player had removed a large quantity of Chips, from a very big stack that he had built up. At the time he removed the Chips from the table, none of the other players had noticed what he had done.
However, the player introduced ALL the Chips he had previously taken, into a Tournament 2 weeks later. A Player had noticed that his Chip Stack had all of a sudden grown, without him winning a 'hand' & the TD was called over. The game was Stopped and the TD reviewed the Camera's. He was seen to be seen taking Chips out of his pocket and now has a Lifetime Ban from all Grosvenor Casinos.
When you think that a Tournament starts with say for example 30,000 Chips per entrant, it would be extremely annoying to find a player introduced, say ONLY one 5,000 or 10,000 Chip, to add to his Stack during the middle to latter stages of the Tournament.
This is just one other reason why Casino's take it very seriously, if a player removes only one Chip.
Hopefully, the 'Casino' will understand your explanation and just give you a Warning.
Good Luck.