A United States District Court has sentenced former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation executive Paulinus Okoronkwo to 87 months in prison for receiving a $2.1 million bribe linked to oil drilling rights in Nigeria.
In a statement released on Monday, U.S. authorities said the district judge also ordered Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The court further directed the forfeiture of $1,039,997, representing the net proceeds from the sale of his home in Valencia, California.
Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American and former general manager in the upstream division of NNPC Limited,, was found guilty in August 2025 on charges of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors said that while serving in NNPC’s upstream division, Okoronkwo abused his position by accepting a payment from Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec. The funds, wired in October 2015 to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles, were allegedly disguised as consultancy fees but were determined to be a bribe intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
Investigators also revealed that Okoronkwo used nearly $1 million from the illicit payment as a down payment on a property in Valencia, California, and failed to declare the funds as income on his 2015 tax return.
In October 2025, the court granted a forfeiture application filed by the U.S. government against Okoronkwo’s property located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia, California.
