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 br+be linked to oil drilling rights in Nigeria.
According to a statement released by US authorities on Monday, 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.
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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 la¥ndering, 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 br+be intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
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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 US government against Okoronkwo’s property located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia, California.
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