Uche Amunike
Lifeandtimes News Writer
A United States court has sentenced former General Manager of the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to 7 years in a US federal prison, for receiving a $2.1 million bribe while he was still serving as an officer of the national oil company.
According to a statement from the US Attorney General’s Office, Central District of California, Okoronkwo, who is a Los Angeles-area lawyer, was sentenced in connection with negotiating favorable drilling rights for a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned oil company.
Paulinus Okoronkwo was sentenced by US District Judge, John Walter, who also ordered him to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to the statement, he was also ordered to forfeit $1,039,997, which is the net proceeds of the sale of a home involved in the laundering of the bribe money.
The 58-year-old Okoronkwo, who is also known as ‘Pollie’ of Rancho Cucamonga was found guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
The statement reiterated: ‘Okoronkwo, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria and who practiced immigration, family, and personal injury law out of an office in Koreatown, was a foreign official who served as the general manager of the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC).’
‘The NNPC is a state-owned company through which Nigeria’s government developed that nation’s fossil fuel and natural gas reserves, including through partnerships with foreign oil companies. In this role, Okoronkwo owed a fiduciary duty to the Nigerian government and was a public official.’
According to the office of the Attorney General, Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec, a Chinese state-owned petroleum, gas and petrochemical conglomerate, transferred a payment of $2,105,263 to an Interest on Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA) in the name of Paulinus Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm in October 2015.
It also noted that this was potentially for his work as a consultant that negotiated and completed a settlement agreement with the oil company with respect to Addax’s drilling rights in Nigeria. According to the indictment, Addax calculated that it would lose billions of dollars if its favourable drilling rights were not secured.
The US clarified: ‘The Engagement letter that Addax signed that month with Okoronkwo’s law office with a fake address in Lagos, Nigeria – was a ruse intended to conceal the fact that its payments to Okoronkwo was a bribe in exchange for his influence in securing more favorable financial terms relating to its crude oil drilling in Nigeria.’
It stated that Addax falsely characterized the $2.1 million payment as a payment for legal services, in order to conceal the illegal bribery scheme and also lied to an auditor about the payments, while firing executives who questioned the payment’s propriety. Okoronkwo also received the payment in his law firm’s IOLTA in order to create a false impression that the bribe payment constituted client funds.
After receiving the bribe into his IOLTA between February 2016 and 2018, Paulinus Okoronkwo routed the funds to a company called IPO Capital LLC and used the bribery funds to pay for family expenses, a car and a home.
The statement verified that in November 2017, he used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to pay for a house in Valencia. He also omitted the $2.1 million bribe payment from his 2015 federal income tax return and obstructed justice in June 2022 when he lied to federal investigators, telling them that he did not use any of the $2.1 million to purchase a house and that the money represented the client funds, rather than income to his law office.
Paulinus Okoronkwo’s law license was suspended in January 2026 by the State Bar of California. The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case, while the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided assistance.
