Former NNPCL GM found guilty of taking $2.1M bribe from a Swiss oil company by U.S court

A U.S. District Court in California has scheduled December 1, 2025, for the sentencing of Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, a former General Manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), who was found guilty of taking a $2.1 million bribe from a Swiss oil firm.

Okoronkwo, 58, was indicted in January 2024 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California. He faced multiple charges, including three counts of unlawful monetary transactions, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.

According to prosecutors, the former NNPCL official received $2,105,263 in October 2015 from Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Chinese energy giant Sinopec.

The payment was routed through his Los Angeles law firm and disguised as consultancy fees. The U.S. Department of Justice described it as a bribe aimed at securing favorable drilling rights in Nigeria.

Court documents showed that Addax executives misrepresented the transaction, misled auditors, and even dismissed staff who questioned the deal. Nearly $1 million of the funds was used by Okoronkwo as a down payment for a home in Valencia, California, while he failed to report the income in his 2015 federal tax filings.

In 2022, during a federal investigation, he further obstructed justice by falsely claiming the money belonged to a client. Following a four-day trial, a jury convicted him on all counts.

Presiding Judge John F. Walter stated that Okoronkwo faces up to 25 years in prison — 10 years each for the unlawful monetary transactions and obstruction of justice, and five years for tax evasion.

Okoronkwo, once a practicing lawyer in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, remains free on a $50,000 bond pending sentencing. He was dismissed by NNPCL in 2024 after his indictment, according to former presidential aide Bashir Ahmad, who confirmed the company had cut ties with him.

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