A federal court in the United States has handed down a 87-month prison sentence to Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American and former General Manager at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), after he was found guilty of accepting millions in bribes from a Chinese oil giant’s subsidiary.
District Judge John Walter imposed the sentence, which also includes an order for Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The court additionally ordered the forfeiture of nearly $1.04 million — the net proceeds from the sale of his Valencia, California home located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place.
Okoronkwo’s troubles stem from his time as General Manager of NNPC’s upstream division, where prosecutors allege he exploited his position to pocket a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based arm of Sinopec, the Chinese state-owned energy conglomerate. Rather than declare the funds, he allegedly funneled close to $1 million of the bribe money as a down payment on the California property, while deliberately omitting the income from his 2015 tax return.
In August 2025, a jury found Okoronkwo guilty on counts of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. Two months later, in October 2025, the court approved the U.S. government’s application to seize his property.
Outside of his career at NNPC, Okoronkwo had been practising law in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighbourhood, handling immigration, family, and personal injury cases.
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