DSS Nabs Fugitive Son of Ex-Pension Task Team Boss Maina, Transfers Him to EFCC
Operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) have arrested Faisal Maina, a convicted fugitive and son of Abdulrasheed Maina, and transferred him to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Security sources said the DSS acted on intelligence that Faisal had quietly slipped back into Nigeria. Operatives then traced him to the Karsana area of Abuja and picked him up. They later handed him over to the EFCC.
Faisal has been a wanted man since 2020. That year, the EFCC arraigned him on three counts of money laundering, and he went into hiding.
The Federal High Court in Abuja convicted him in October 2021 and sentenced him to 14 years in prison. Justice Okon Abang found that Faisal ran a fake account with United Bank for Africa (UBA). The court heard that his father used the account to launder N58.1 million.
The money went into an account named “Alhaji Faisal Farm 2”. According to the court, father and son withdrew it between October 2013 and June 2019.
Faisal challenged the verdict. In November 2022, the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction but cut his jail term to seven years. The justices said the trial court was wrong to hand a first-time offender the maximum sentence.
His father, Abdulrasheed Maina, once chaired the defunct Pension Reform Task Team. He served eight years at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja for laundering N2 billion in pension funds. He regained his freedom earlier in 2026. However, authorities soon declared him wanted again over an alleged case of receiving stolen property.
