In a United States court, Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American and former general manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has been “found guilty of receiving a $2.1 million bribe.”
He was also convicted of “transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.”
Prosecutors revealed that while he was with NNPC’s upstream division, Okoronkwo “abused his position by accepting a $2.1 million payment” from Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned Sinopec.
The money, wired in October 2015 to his Los Angeles law firm’s trust account, was allegedly disguised as a payment for consultancy services but was in fact a bribe to secure favorable drilling rights in Nigeria.
During the four-day trial, prosecutors provided evidence that Addax executives falsified records to make the payment appear as legal fees, fired employees who raised concerns, and gave misleading information to auditors.
Okoronkwo, who practiced law in Koreatown, later used almost $1 million of the bribe money as a down payment on a home in Valencia, California, and failed to declare the income on his 2015 tax return.
A statement from the US attorney’s office, central district of California, reads, “According to the indictment, Addax calculated that it stood to lose billions of dollars if its favourable drilling rights were not secured.”
The statement continued, “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 payment to Okoronkwo was a bribe in exchange for his influence in securing more favourable financial terms relating to its crude oil drilling in Nigeria.”
The statement also noted that, “To conceal the illegal bribery scheme, Addax falsely characterised the $2.1 million payment as a payment for legal services, lied to an auditor about the payment, and fired executives who questioned the payment’s propriety.”
The statement further explained, “To create the false impression that the bribe payment constituted client funds, Okoronkwo received the payment in his law firm’s IOLTA.” It also added, “In November 2017, Okoronkwo used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to make a down payment on a house in Valencia.”
The report also said, “Okoronkwo omitted the $2.1 million bribe payment from his 2015 federal income tax return.”
It finished by saying, “He also obstructed justice in June 2022 when he lied to federal investigators when he told them he did not use any of the $2.1 million to purchase a house and that the money represented client funds rather than income to his law office.”
John Walter, the US district judge, has scheduled the sentencing hearing for December 1.
The statement concluded, “Okoronkwo will face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each money laundering count, up to 10 years in federal prison for the obstruction of justice count, and up to five years in federal prison for the tax evasion count.”