US COURT JAILS FORMER NNPC GM FOR 87 MONTHS OVER $2.1M BRIBE FROM CHINESE FIRM

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A U.S. district court has given Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian American, an 87-month prison sentence for taking a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum. Addax Petroleum is a part of Sinopec, which is a big Chinese company that owns and operates oil and gas businesses.

Okoronkwo used to be the general manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, which is now called NNPC Limited. On Monday, the US government announced that District Judge John Walter told Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 back to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The judge also made sure that $1,039,997 was taken away, which is the money left after selling a house that belonged to the former NNPC general manager.

In August 2025, Okoronkwo was convicted of money laundering, not paying taxes, and stopping justice from happening.

US prosecutors said that while Okoronkwo was in charge of the upstream division at NNPC, he used his job to get a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum, a company based in Switzerland that is owned by Sinopec.

The prosecutors said the money, wired in October 2015 to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles, was disguised as payment for consultancy services but was a bribe to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.

The prosecutors had presented evidence that Addax executives falsified records to show the payment as legal fees, dismissed internal staff who raised concerns, and provided misleading information to auditors.

Okoronkwo, who used to work in immigration, family, and personal injury law in Koreatown, was reported to have used almost $1 million from bribe money as a down payment for a house in Valencia, California. He didn’t report this income on his 2015 tax return.