* Paulinus Okoronkwo
The Pathfinder
Thursday February 26, 2026
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A United States district court has sentenced Paulinus Okoronkwo, a former general manager of the NNPC Limited, to 87 months in prison for receiving a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of Sinopec.
The Nigerian-American was convicted in August 2025 on charges including transactional money laundering, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said Okoronkwo accepted the payment while serving in NNPC’s upstream division, disguising the bribe as consultancy fees to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
The court also ordered him to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and forfeit $1,039,997, representing proceeds from the sale of a property linked to the illicit funds.
According to prosecutors, the bribe was wired in October 2015 to Okoronkwo’s law firm account in Los Angeles and later used partly as a down payment on a home in Valencia, California. Authorities said he failed to declare the funds in his 2015 tax returns.
Investigators further alleged that executives of Addax Petroleum falsified records to conceal the payment as legitimate legal fees and misled auditors during internal reviews.
The forfeited property, located in Valencia, California, had earlier been seized following a court order in October 2025.
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