US Court Convicts Ex-NNPCL Official Over $2.1 Million Bribery Scheme

A Los Angeles-based Nigerian lawyer, Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, has been convicted on five federal charges related to a $2.1 million bribe he received while serving as an officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL). The jury found Okoronkwo, 58, guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Okoronkwo’s sentencing is scheduled for December 1, 2025, when he could face up to 25 years in federal prison. Okoronkwo, also known as “Pollie,” practiced immigration, family, and personal injury law in Koreatown, Los Angeles, and holds dual citizenship in the United States and Nigeria.

Evidence presented during the four-day trial showed that Okoronkwo served as general manager of NNPCL’s upstream division, a role in which he owed a fiduciary duty to the Nigerian government. In 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Sinopec, transferred $2,105,263 to an interest-on-lawyers’ trust account (IOLTA) at Okoronkwo’s law firm. The payment was allegedly for consulting work related to Addax’s drilling rights in Nigeria, but prosecutors said it was actually a bribe to secure favorable terms.

The engagement letter signed by Addax included a false Lagos address and was designed to disguise the payment as legal fees. Addax executives lied to auditors and fired employees who questioned the transaction, while Okoronkwo deposited the funds in his firm’s IOLTA account to make it appear as client money. In 2017, he used nearly \$1 million of the funds for a down payment on a house in Valencia.

Okoronkwo failed to report the bribe on his 2015 federal income tax return and later lied to federal investigators in 2022, claiming the money was client funds and denying its use for his home purchase.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter will preside over the sentencing. The charges carry statutory maximums of 10 years per money laundering count, 10 years for obstruction of justice, and five years for tax evasion. Okoronkwo is currently free on $50,000 bond. The case was investigated by the FBI 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 are prosecuting the case.