U.S. Court Sentences Former NNPC Chief to Seven Years in Prison for Million-Dollar Bribe

A U.S. court has sentenced former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) executive Paulinus Okoronkwo to seven years and three months in prison for accepting a $2.1 million bribe.

The case stems from Okoronkwo’s role in arranging favorable drilling rights for a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned company Sinopec. Investigators said the bribe was disguised as a legal consulting fee paid to Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter handed down the sentence on Monday. Okoronkwo, 58, also forfeited a $2.5 million Los Angeles mansion last year, was ordered to pay $923,824 in restitution to the IRS, and forfeit $1,039,997 linked to the laundering of the bribe.

Okoronkwo, a dual U.S.-Nigerian citizen, previously served as the general manager of NNPC’s upstream division. In January, the State Bar of California suspended his law license.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Sinopec, transferred $2,105,263 to Okoronkwo’s law firm’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account (IOLTA). The payment was meant to secure a settlement favorable to Addax’s drilling operations in Nigeria. The DOJ described the payment as a bribe concealed through false documentation, misleading auditors, and dismissing executives who questioned it.

The DOJ further detailed that Okoronkwo moved the funds through a company called IPO Capital LLC between 2016 and 2018, using the money for personal expenses including a family home, a car, and other costs. He failed to report the bribe on his 2015 federal income tax return and provided false statements to investigators in 2022 regarding the use of the funds.