A United States district court has sentenced Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian American, to 87 months in prison for receiving a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of Sinopec, a Chinese state owned petroleum and gas conglomerate. Okoronkwo is a former general manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), now NNPC Limited

. In a statement on Monday, the US government said John Walter, the district judge, ordered Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The judge also ordered the forfeiture of $1,039,997, which is the net proceeds of the sale of a home belong ing to the ex-NNPC general manager.

In August 2025, Okoronkwo was found guilty of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. According to US prosecutors, while serving as NNPC’s Upstream Division General Manager, Okoronkwo abused his position by accepting a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum, the Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec.

The prosecutors said the money, wired in October 2015 to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles, was disguised as payment for consultancy services but was a bribe to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.