A 54-year-old man from Paphos was arrested after attempting to steal a boiler, the police said on Thursday.

The police said the incident began after a 44-year-old man went to work at an uninhabited apartment building at around 5pm and found two people inside carrying a boiler

The pair dropped the boiler and fled after noticing him, but the man managed to stop one of them. Officers later identified him as a 54-year-old resident of Paphos.

The stolen property, which also included an amount of metal piping was valued at €6,000, while damage caused to plumbing installations during the extraction of the boiler was also estimated at €6,000.

The 54-year-old was on Thursday remanded in custody for five days, while the second suspect remains at large.