US Court Jails Ex-NNPC Executive Paulinus Okoronkwo 87 Months Over $2.1m Bribe

A United States District Court has sentenced Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American and former General Manager at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (now NNPC Limited), to 87 months in prison for receiving a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned energy giant Sinopec.

In a statement issued Monday, US authorities said District Judge John Walter also ordered Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Additionally, the court directed the forfeiture of $1,039,997, representing the net proceeds from the sale of his residential property.

Okoronkwo was convicted in August 2025 on charges of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors told the court that while serving as General Manager of NNPC’s upstream division, he exploited his position by accepting a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum, the Switzerland-based arm of Sinopec.

According to the prosecution, the funds were transferred in October 2015 to a trust account belonging to Okoronkwo’s law firm in Los Angeles under the guise of consultancy fees. However, investigators established that the payment was a bribe intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.

Court filings revealed that Addax executives allegedly falsified internal documentation to present the transaction as legitimate legal fees, terminated employees who raised compliance concerns, and provided misleading disclosures to auditors.

Okoronkwo, who practised immigration, family, and personal injury law in Koreatown, was said to have channelled nearly $1 million of the illicit proceeds as a down payment for a home in Valencia, California. He also failed to report the bribe as income in his 2015 tax return.

In October 2025, the court approved a forfeiture motion filed by the US government against the property located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia, California 91381, finalising the seizure of assets tied to the bribery scheme.