DSS Arrests Convicted Maina’s Son, Hands Him Over To EFCC

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

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 transferring him to the EFCC.

Faisal had been on the run since 2020 after the EFCC arraigned him on a three-count charge bordering on money laundering, according to PUNCH Online.

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, Justice Okon Abang, held that the EFCC had established that Faisal operated a fictitious bank account with United Bank for Africa (UBA), through which his father allegedly laundered N58.1 million.

The court said the money was deposited into an account operated in the name of “Alhaji Faisal Farm 2” and withdrawn by Faisal and his father between October 2013 and June 2019.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, Abdulrasheed Maina, served an eight-year prison sentence at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja for laundering N2 billion in pension funds.

He was released earlier in 2026 but was subsequently declared wanted over an alleged case of receiving stolen property.