A United States decide has discovered Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian lawyer primarily based in Los Angeles, responsible of receiving a $2.1 million bribe from a Chinese language oil firm to safe drilling rights in Nigeria.
He was stated to have accepted the bribe whereas serving as an official of the state-owned oil agency, NNPC, now NNPC Ltd.
Mr Okoronkwo, 58, also referred to as “Pollie,” was discovered responsible of three counts of cash laundering, one rely of tax evasion, and one rely of obstruction of justice.
The decision was delivered on 29 August after a four-day trial in California.
Prosecutors advised the court docket that Mr Okoronkwo, a twin US-Nigerian citizen, collected the cost in 2015 whereas serving as basic supervisor of the upstream division of the NNPC. In that position, he was a public officer and owed an obligation of loyalty to Nigeria’s authorities, the court docket stated.
In October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Chinese language state-owned oil big Sinopec, paid a bribe to Mr Okoronkwo in alternate for his affect in securing extra beneficial monetary phrases referring to its crude oil drilling in Nigeria, the court docket dominated.
Proof confirmed that Addax wired the funds to a belief account within the title of Mr Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles regulation agency underneath the guise of authorized consultancy.
Prosecutors described the settlement as a sham designed to cowl up the bribe.
Addax was looking for to guard its profitable drilling rights in Nigeria, which prosecutors stated had been price billions of {dollars}.
In an try and cowl up the bribe, Addax fired executives who raised considerations concerning the cost’s legitimacy and lied concerning the transaction throughout an audit, the court docket stated.
Investigators revealed that in November 2017, Mr Okoronkwo used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to make a down cost on a home in Valencia, California, and didn’t declare the cash on his 2015 tax returns.
Then in 2022, he lied to federal brokers, insisting the cash was consumer funds and never his revenue.
US District Choose John F. Walter has scheduled 1 December for a sentencing listening to, at which era Mr Okoronkwo will face a statutory most sentence of 10 years in federal jail for every cash laundering rely, as much as 10 years in federal jail for the obstruction of justice rely, and as much as 5 years in federal jail for the tax evasion rely.
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Mr Okoronkwo is at present launched on a $50,000 bond.
The FBI and IRS Prison Investigation led the investigation, with help from the Justice Division’s Workplace of Worldwide Affairs.
The case is being prosecuted by the Assistant US Attorneys Alexander Schwab, Deputy Chief of the Prison Division Nisha Chandran of the Main Frauds Part, and Alexander Su of the Asset Forfeiture and Restoration Part.
