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Five suspected thieves were yesterday arrested for looting items belonging to traders whose stores were gutted by fire at Kantamanto market at the Central Business District of Accra early Sunday morning. The suspects were Gilbert Ayikuya, 20, Joseph Appiah, 29, Kwabena Ntow, 25, Kofi Yeboah, 31, and Isaac Koranteng, 18. The suspects, currently in police custody were seen looting items such as shoes and secondhand clothing. Last Sunday�s fire destroyed properties worth several millions of Ghana Cedis belonging to traders numbering over 1,000 in Accra. The fire which started around 4:00am raided stores belonging to the secondhand clothing dealers, shoe sellers and sewing machine dealers. It is not clear what caused the inferno but eye witnesses believed a gas cylinder belonging to one of the traders exploded, causing the uncontrollable fire. DSP Iddrissu Tanko Issifu, the Railways District Police Commander told DAILY GUIDE in an interview that while the Fire Service personnel were busily putting out the fire, the suspects were seen carrying stolen items. Some of them had bags of shoes and machines when the police, suspecting they might be thieves, nabbed them. The suspects would be arraigned in court soon. A massive fire last Sunday morning engulfed sections of the Kantamanto market in Accra. Reports indicated that efforts by officials of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to put out the fire were being hampered by their inability to gain entrance into the market due to the poor architectural design of the place and the placement of illegal structures on some streets of the market. The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Alhassan, visited the scene early that fateful day in the company of some police officers to join the Railyways Police to maintain law and order. Later the Vice President, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Ammisah-Arthur also visited the area together with his entourage to sympathize with the victims who lost their items to the fire.