A United States District Court has ordered the interim forfeiture of a California property linked to Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American and former general manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), after finding him guilty of financial crimes tied to a $2.1m bribe.
Okoronkwo was convicted in September of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors told the court that while serving as NNPC’s upstream division general manager, he accepted $2.1m from Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of China’s state-owned Sinopec.
The payment, sent in October 2015 to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles, was allegedly disguised as consultancy fees but was in fact a bribe to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
According to court filings quoted by The Cable, Addax executives falsified company records to present the payment as legal fees, dismissed employees who questioned the transaction, and misled auditors during internal reviews.
Okoronkwo, who later practised law in Los Angeles,covering immigration, family, and personal injury cases, used nearly $1m from the bribe as a down payment on a property in Valencia, California. Prosecutors also noted that he failed to declare the illicit income in his 2015 tax filings.
On October 3, Judge John Walter granted the application filed by the US government for the forfeiture of the Valencia property located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia, California 91381.
“For the reasons set out below, any right, title, and interest of the defendant in the following described property (hereinafter, the ‘Forfeitable Property’) is hereby forfeited to the United States,” the court order stated.
The order further established a direct link between the property and Okoronkwo’s offences, citing his violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957 on transactional money laundering.
The judge authorised the US Attorney General to seize the asset and instructed that the net proceeds from its sale be retained by the government.
The US government subsequently issued a notice inviting any individual with a legal interest in the property to file a claim within 60 days.
The property was described in court filings as “Tract Number 45433, Lot 12, with Assessor’s Parcel Number 2826-143-004 (Consolidated Asset Identification System Number 24-FBI-001775).”
Okoronkwo’s sentencing has been set for December 1, with penalties for money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.
