A former General Manager of the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC),, Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, has been sentenced to 87 months in a United States federal prison for accepting a $2.1 million bribe while serving as an official of the state oil company.
According to a statement from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Okoronkwo—58, also known as “Pollie” and based in the Los Angeles area—was convicted for his role in securing favourable drilling rights for a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned oil firm.
United States District Judge John Walter sentenced him and ordered him to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The court also directed the forfeiture of $1,039,997, representing proceeds from the sale of a home tied to the laundering of the bribe funds.
Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo
Following a four-day trial, a jury in August 2025 found Okoronkwo guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors stated that Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria, previously managed the upstream division of the NNPC, the government-owned corporation responsible for developing Nigeria’s oil and gas resources in partnership with foreign firms. In that capacity, he owed fiduciary duties to the Nigerian government.
Court documents revealed that in October 2015, Addax Petroleum—a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec—transferred $2,105,263 to an Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account (IOLTA) belonging to Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm. The payment was presented as compensation for consultancy services related to negotiating a settlement over drilling rights in Nigeria.
However, investigators determined that the consulting agreement, which listed a fictitious Lagos address, was a cover designed to disguise the payment as legal fees when it was in fact a bribe intended to secure more favourable financial terms for oil exploration. Authorities said Addax misrepresented the payment to auditors and dismissed executives who raised concerns.
To conceal the illicit funds, Okoronkwo deposited the payment into his firm’s IOLTA account and later transferred portions between 2016 and 2018 to IPO Capital LLC. The funds were used to cover personal and family expenses, including the purchase of a vehicle and a home. In November 2017, he allegedly used $983,200 of the proceeds as a down payment on a house in Valencia, California.
Prosecutors also said Okoronkwo failed to declare the $2.1 million payment on his 2015 federal tax return. In June 2022, he obstructed justice by falsely telling federal investigators that the funds were client money and had not been used to buy property.
In January 2026, the State Bar of California suspended his law licence. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and IRS Criminal Investigation, with assistance from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alexander B. Schwab, Nisha Chandran, and Alexander Su led the prosecution.
Source: Thisday
