Ex-pension task team chairman bags eight year jail term for money laundering

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Former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Mr Abdulrasheed Maina, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for money laundering.
He was found guilty on Monday by an Abuja
Federal High Court presided over by Justice Okon Abang.
Maina has been standing trial since 2019, when he was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He stood trial on 12 count charge bothering on money laundering among others.
The court found him guilty of laundering over N2 billion funds belonging to pensioners in the country.
Convicted alongside the Maina was his company, Common Input Property and Investment Limited.
The court ordered Maina and the firm to forfeit to the federal government about N2.1 billion traced to their bank accounts and the company would thereafter be wound up.
One of the accounts had cash deposits of N300 million while the other two contains had N500 million, and N1.5 billion respectively.
The court further observed that Maina’s salaries and emoluments in all his years as a civil servant could not amount to the monies in the said accounts.
In convicting Maina of money laundering, the judge held that Maina ran foul of the law when he purchased a property in Abuja, with cash, in the sum of $1.4 million, which was above the statutory threshold of N5 million and without passing through a financial institution.
Other properties the judge held should be forfeited to the federal government included Maina’s houses at Life Camp and Jabi Districts of Abuja, a bulletproof car and a BMW 5 series that were found at his premises.
The court ordered that the properties should be auctioned and the proceeds given to the federal government.
Justice Abang, who stated that the offences for which Maina was convicted attracted a maximum sentence of 14 years, however handed him eight years based on Maina’s plea to be linient in his sentencing.

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