A former senior executive of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, has been sentenced to 87 months’ imprisonment in the United States for his role in a multi-million dollar bribery scheme tied to oil concessions.
Okoronkwo, 58, was found guilty of receiving $2.1m from a Swiss-based oil firm while holding office at Nigeria’s state-owned oil company.
Beyond the custodial sentence, the court directed him to pay $923,824 to the Internal Revenue Service as restitution and to forfeit $1,039,997 traced to the sale of a property linked to the illicit funds.
The judgment was delivered by US District Judge John F. Walter after a four-day trial that ended in August 2025, the United States Department of Justice disclosed in a statement on Thursday.
According to the department, the Los Angeles-based attorney collected the bribe while serving as an officer of Nigeria’s national oil company, in connection with negotiations that secured favourable drilling terms for a subsidiary of a Chinese government-owned oil corporation.
A jury convicted him on three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion and one count of obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors stated that he was first charged in January 2024 by the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California for engaging in financial transactions involving unlawful proceeds, evading federal taxes and attempting to obstruct an investigation.
Though resident in the United States, Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the US, combined private legal practice in immigration and personal injury matters in Los Angeles with his position as General Manager of the Upstream Division of the NNPC, a role regarded as that of a foreign public official owing fiduciary duties to the Nigerian government.
Court filings showed that in October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Chinese energy giant Sinopec, transferred $2,105,263 into an Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account operated by his law firm.
While the transaction was described as consultancy fees for facilitating drilling rights negotiations in Nigeria, prosecutors argued that the payment was in fact intended to improperly influence official actions in favour of the company’s oil interests.
Investigators further uncovered that the engagement agreement between the oil firm and Okoronkwo’s practice carried a false Lagos address, allegedly to conceal the real nature of the deal.
Portions of the money were later routed through a company identified as IPO Capital LLC and spent on personal acquisitions, including a vehicle and a home in Valencia, California.
The court also heard that he failed to declare the $2.1m payment in his 2015 tax return, forming the basis of the tax evasion charge.
In June 2022, he was said to have misrepresented the source of the funds to federal agents, claiming they were client deposits rather than personal income used to acquire property.
In the aftermath of the case, Okoronkwo lost his position at the NNPC, now operating as NNPCL, while the State Bar of California suspended his licence to practise law in January 2026.
