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A United States District Court in California has convicted a former General Manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Paulinus Okoronkwo, for accepting a $2.1 million bribe from a Swiss oil firm.
The former NNPC General Manager will be sentenced by the court on December 1, 2025.
Okoronkwo, 58, was indicted in January 2024 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California on multiple charges, including three counts of unlawful monetary transactions, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors said the former NNPCL executive received $2,105,263 in October 2015 from Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Chinese oil giant Sinopec.
The payment, funnelled through his Los Angeles law firm and presented as consultancy fees, was described by the U.S. Department of Justice as a bribe intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
Court filings revealed that Addax executives misrepresented the transaction, misled auditors, and dismissed officials who raised concerns about the deal.
Okoronkwo allegedly used nearly $1 million of the funds as a down payment for a home in Valencia, California, while failing to declare the income in his 2015 Federal tax return.
In 2022, during a Federal probe, he further obstructed justice by falsely claiming the funds belonged to a client. After a four-day trial, a jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts.
Judge John F. Walter, who presided over the case, noted that Okoronkwo could face up to 25 years in prison – 10 years each for the unlawful monetary transactions and obstruction of justice, and five years for tax evasion.
Okoronkwo, once a practising Lawyer in Los Angeles’ Koreatown district, is currently out on a $50,000 bond while awaiting sentencing.
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