A former Nigerian oil honcho turned Koreatown lawyer is facing serious heat after a federal grand jury slapped him with charges of money laundering and tax evasion, not to mention obstructing investigation into his cool $2.1 million score from a Swiss oil company, the Department of Justice released Thursday.
Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, the 67-year-old lawyer with a practice specializing in immigration and personal injury law, allegedly pocketed the seven-figure sum as part of a bribe when he was an official for Nigeria's state-owned oil company, nabbing favorable drilling deals for a Chinese firm's subsidiary, according to the Justice Department statement.
The indictment paints Okoronkwo as both a dual U.S.-Nigerian citizen and a public official who once held the reins as general manager at the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC); it suggests his actions effectively sold out the trust placed in him by the NNPC and, by extension, the Nigerian public.
Flexing his legal practice as a front, Okoronkwo allegedly took in the wad from Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Sinopec – a giant Chinese state-owned oil, gas, and petrochemical behemoth, under the guise of consultation fees, however, the indictment reveals that he finessed a faux engagement letter complete with a bogus address in Nigeria to disguise the payment – which was truly a bribe to secure Addax more lucrative crude oil drilling agreements in Nigeria, the indictment said it stood to lose billions without his influence,
Further muddying the waters, Okoronkwo is charged with evading taxes by leaving out the hefty bribe from his 2015 tax returns, and for tossing a curveball at investigators with misleading information when they came calling in June 2022. His upcoming arraignment in the United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles will mark the next chapter in this legal saga.
If the gavel comes down hard against him, Okoronkwo could face up to a decade in the federal pen for each money laundering count, plus another ten for obstruction and a half-decade for his evasion of the taxman.
This case, now unwinding like a Hollywood script minus the glitz, is being probed by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation, with Assistant United States Attorney Alexander B. Schwab of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Strike Force taking up prosecutorial duties with some aid from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs thrown into the mix.
