United States court has sentenced a former official of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (now NNPCL), Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, to 87 months in prison for bribery and money laundering linked to oil drilling rights in Nigeria.
Okoronkwo, 58, was found guilty of receiving a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based oil company, in exchange for helping secure favourable drilling terms for its operations in Nigeria.
He was also convicted on multiple counts of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.
The sentencing followed a four-day jury trial concluded in August 2025 and was delivered by a federal judge in Los Angeles, according to a statement from the United States Department of Justice.
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In addition to the prison term, the court ordered Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and to forfeit $1,039,997, representing proceeds from the sale of a property linked to the laundering of the bribe funds.
Court documents revealed that in October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of Sinopec, wired $2,105,263 into an Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account belonging to Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm.
Although the payment was presented as consultancy fees for negotiating oil drilling rights in Nigeria, prosecutors said the funds were in fact a bribe.
Investigators said the engagement letter used to justify the transfer carried a fictitious Lagos address, which was allegedly intended to conceal the true nature of the transaction.
Parts of the money were later transferred to a company, IPO Capital LLC, and used for personal expenses, including the purchase of a vehicle and a residential property in Valencia, California.
The jury found Okoronkwo guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion for failing to declare the $2.1 million on his 2015 tax return, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors said he later misled investigators by claiming the funds were client money rather than personal income.
Okoronkwo, a dual US–Nigerian citizen, practised immigration, family, and personal injury law in Los Angeles while serving as General Manager of the Upstream Division of NNPC, a position that classified him as a foreign public official with fiduciary duties to the Nigerian government.
Following the case, he was dismissed from NNPC, and the State Bar of California suspended his law licence in January 2026.
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