US court orders forfeiture of property linked to ex-NNPC GM convicted over $2.1m bribe

A United States (US) district court has ordered the interimforfeiture of a property in California linked to Paulinus Okoronkwo, a NigerianAmerican, alleged to have been acquired with proceeds from bribery. Okoronkwo is a former general manager of the NigerianNational Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), now NNPC Limited. In September, the district court found Okoronkwo guilty oftransactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said while serving as NNPC’s upstream divisiongeneral manager, Okoronkwo abused his position by accepting a $2.1 millionpayment from Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of China’sstate-owned Sinopec. The money, wired in October 2015 to his law firm’s trustaccount in Los Angeles, was disguised as payment for consultancy services butwas a bribe to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria. The prosecutors had presented evidence that Addax executivesfalsified records to show the payment as legal fees, dismissed internal staffwho raised concerns, and provided misleading information to auditors. Okoronkwo, who practised immigration, family, and personalinjury law in Koreatown, later used nearly $1 million of the bribe money as adown payment on a home in Valencia, California, while failing to declare theincome on his 2015 tax return. John Walter, the US district judge, had scheduled December 1for the sentencing hearing. THE FORFEITURE According to the court documents, the judge, on October 3,granted the forfeiture application filed by the US government againstOkoronkwo’s property. The property is located at 25340 Twin Oaks Place, Valencia,California 91381. “For the reasons set out below, any right, title, andinterest of the defendant in the following described property (hereinafter, the“Forfeitable Property”) is hereby forfeited to the United States,” the courtorder reads. “The Court finds that the government has established therequisite nexus between the Forfeitable Property and the offenses described inCounts 1 through 3 the First Superseding Indictment, which charged defendantwith violating 18 U.S.C. § 1957 (transactional money laundering). “The Forfeitable Property is more particularly described as:i. The net proceeds of the sale of the real property located at 25340 Twin OaksPlace, Valencia, California 91381, more particularly described as Tract Number45433, Lot 12, with Assessor’s Parcel Number 2826-143-004 (Consolidated AssetIdentification System Number 24-FBI-001775) (“Forfeitable Property”). “Upon the entry of this Order, and pursuant to Federal Ruleof Criminal Procedure 32.2(b)(3) and 21 U.S.C. § 853, the United StatesAttorney General (or a designee) is authorized to seize the ForfeitableProperty.” The US government had published a notice asking any personwho has interest in the forfeited property to show cause within 60 days. (Seepage 117 of the attached document).

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