DSS arrests fleeing Maina’s son in Abuja

The Department of State Services has arrested Faisal, son of the former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, and handed him over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Security sources disclosed that Faisal’s arrest followed intelligence indicating that he had secretly returned to Nigeria.

“His arrest followed credible intelligence which indicated that Faisal had secretly returned to the country,” a source said.

The source added that DSS operatives tracked and arrested him in the Karsana area of Abuja before handing him over to the EFCC.

Faisal had been on the run since 2020 after being arraigned by the EFCC on a three-count charge bordering on money laundering.

In October 2021, the Federal High Court in Abuja convicted him on money laundering charges and sentenced him to 14 years’ imprisonment.

The trial judge, Okon Abang, held that the EFCC had established that Faisal operated a fictitious bank account with the United Bank for Africa through which his father allegedly laundered N58.1m.

The court said the money was deposited into an account operated in the name of Alhaji Faisal Farm 2 and withdrawn by Faisal and his father between October 2013 and June 2019.

In November 2022, the Court of Appeal upheld Faisal’s conviction but reduced his sentence from 14 years to seven years, ruling that the trial court should not have imposed the maximum sentence on a first-time offender.

His father, Maina, served a prison sentence for laundering pension funds before his subsequent release and later troubles with the law.