On February 23, 2026, Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, a Los Angeles-area attorney, was sentenced in the Central District of California to 87 months in prison for his role in a money laundering and bribery scheme that involved the payment of a $2.1 million bribe by a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned petroleum, gas, and petrochemical conglomerate Sinopec. According to federal prosecutors, Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria, received the bribe while he was serving as an officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (“NNPC”), Nigeria’s state-owned oil company. In addition to the prison term, Okoronkwo was ordered to pay $923,824 in restitution to the IRS and to forfeit $1,039,997, which represents the net proceeds obtained from the sale of a home involved in the scheme. Because of his role in the scheme, the State Bar of California also suspended Okoronkwo’s law license in January 2026.
In August 2025, a jury found Okoronkwo guilty of three counts of money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice. According to the evidence presented at trial, the $2.1 million bribe was paid in October 2015 by Addax Petroleum, Sinopec’s Switzerland-based subsidiary, to obtain Okoronkwo’s help in obtaining more favorable crude oil drilling rights in Nigeria. The DOJ contended that Okoronkwo received the bribe payments while he was serving as the general manager of the upstream division of the NNPC and concurrently operating a law firm in Los Angeles, and that he subsequently used the funds for, among other things, purchasing a car and making a down payment on a house in Valencia, California. He then failed to disclose the payment on his 2015 tax returns and lied to federal investigators about the payment in 2022, according to evidence presented at trial.
USAO CDCA Press Release | Indictment