EFCC Takes Custody Of Maina’s Son After DSS Arrest In Abuja

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

Security sources disclosed that the arrest followed intelligence reports indicating that Faisal had secretly returned to the country.

According to a source, 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 anti-graft agency arraigned him 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 in prison.

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

The court said the funds were deposited into an account operated in the name of “Alhaji Faisal Farm 2” and withdrawn by Faisal and his father between October 2013 and June 2019.

However, in November 2022, the Court of Appeal upheld his 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.

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

Faisal’s transfer to the EFCC is expected to pave the way for further action by the anti-graft agency in connection with his outstanding case.