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 Sinopec, the Chinese state-owned oil and gas conglomerate.

In a statement issued on Monday, the US government said District Judge John Walter also ordered Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The court further ordered the forfeiture of $1,039,997, representing the net proceeds from the sale of a residential property owned by the former NNPC executive.

According to US prosecutors, Okoronkwo abused his position as general manager in NNPC’s upstream division by accepting a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum’s Switzerland-based subsidiary in October 2015.

The funds were wired to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles and were disguised as consultancy fees. However, prosecutors said the payment was in fact a bribe intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.

The prosecution presented evidence that Addax executives falsified internal records to classify the payment as legal fees, dismissed employees who raised compliance concerns, and provided misleading information to auditors.

Okoronkwo, who later practised immigration, family and personal injury law in Koreatown, Los Angeles, reportedly used nearly $1 million of the bribe proceeds as a down payment on a home in Valencia, California. He also failed to declare the income on his 2015 tax return.

In October 2025, a US court granted the government’s forfeiture application against his property, located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia, California 91381.

The case forms part of broader US enforcement efforts targeting foreign corruption and financial crimes involving US financial systems. (BusinessDay)

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