Paulinus Okoronkwo, a former topshot of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has forfeiture one of his properties in California after being jailed for accepting a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum.
Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American who later practised law in Los Angeles, was in September found guilty of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.
According to US prosecutors, while serving as General Manager in NNPC’s upstream division, Paulinus Okoronkwo abused his office by accepting a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of China’s state-owned Sinopec Group.
The payment, wired in October 2015 to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles, was disguised as consultancy fees but was in fact a bribe intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
Prosecutors told the court that Addax executives falsified records to misrepresent the transaction as legal fees, dismissed internal whistleblowers, and misled auditors during internal reviews.
Investigations revealed that Okoronkwo used nearly $1 million from the illicit funds as a down payment for a luxury home in Valencia, California, while concealing the income from US tax authorities.
District Judge John Walter is scheduled to sentence Okoronkwo on December 1, 2025.
Court documents show that on October 3, Judge Walter granted the US government’s request to seize Okoronkwo’s property located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia, California 91381.
“The Court finds that the government has established the requisite nexus between the forfeitable property and the offences described in Counts 1 through 3 of the First Superseding Indictment,” the order read.
The forfeiture covers the net proceeds of the sale of the property, identified as Tract Number 45433, Lot 12, with Assessor’s Parcel Number 2826-143-004.
Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.2(b)(3) and 21 U.S.C. § 853, the US Attorney General (or a designee) is authorised to seize the asset immediately.
The US government also published a 60-day public notice inviting any third party with a legitimate claim to the property to come forward.