Former employee-nnpcl risks 25 years in US prison for $ 2.1 million …

The United States of America have set the condemnation of a former employee of the National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Paulinus Okoronkwo, who is facing a trial for alleged receipt of a bustle of from $ 2.1 million from a Swiss company while at the service of the company, for 1 December, since now it risks a maximum of 25 years of imprisonment.

We remind you that the American prosecutor’s office in the Central District of California had indicted Okoronkwo in January 2024 for three reasons relating to “engage in monetary transactions in ownership derived from specific illegal activities, a tax evasion count and a occupation of obstruction of justice”.
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The declaration also observed that the defendant had been accused of tax evasion for presumably omitted the payment of $ 2.1 million from his 2015 federal tax return.

Also commenting on the issue of 2024, a former media helper to the deceased president Muhammadu Buhari, Bashir Ahmad, had revealed on his X page that Okoronkwo had been fired following his accusation in the scandal by the NNPC (now nnpcl).

“The person involved is Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo and Nnpc fired him because of his involvement in the scandal. Before his resolution, he was a general manager in the upstream department.

“On May 25, 2015, a few days before the mandate of President Goodluck Jonathan had ended on May 29, Okoronkwo and other officials nnpc concluded an agreement with Addax Petroleum which cost Nigeria $ 2.4 billion,” Ahmad had tweeted.

By giving an update on the trial in a declaration obtained from the Doj of the United States website Tuesday, the United States revealed that the 58 -year -old lawyer was stated in three counts on the border with the recycling of transactional money, a tax evasion count and a counting of obstruction of justice.

According to the declaration, Okoronkwo, in October 2015, would have received a payment of $ 2,105,263 from a Sinopec subsidiary based in Switzerland in his account of the law firm.

The declaration observed that the money was “presumably for his work as a consultant who negotiated and completed a transactive agreement with the NNPC in relation to the perforation rights of Addax in Nigeria”.

The declaration stated that the Doj investigations revealed that “the letter of involvement that Addax signed that month with the Okoronkwo legal office – with a false address in Lagos, Nigeria, was a stratagem intended to hide the fact that his payment to Okoronkwo was a bustarella in exchange for exchange for his influence in guaranteeing the most favorable financial terms relating to his oil in Nigera.

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He continued: “To hide the illegal corruption regime, Addax falsely characterized $ 2.1 million as payment for legal services, lied to an auditor on the payment and fired the managers who questioned the ownership of the payment.

“To create the false impression that the payment of Bustarella constituted the customer’s funds, Okoronkwo received payment in the olta of his law firm.”

The declaration also stressed that the accused had used $ 983,200 of the funds obtained illegally to carry out a down payment on a house in Valencia in 2017.

It was also assumed that Okoronkwo has omitted the payment of $ 2.1 million from his 2015 federal tax return.

“He also blocked justice in June 2022 when he lied to federal investigators, telling them that he did not use any of the $ 2.1 million to buy a house and that the money represented customers’s funds rather than income to his law firm,” added the declaration.

According to the Doj, Okoronkwo was declared guilty after a four -day trial and was now scheduled for the sentence on 1 December by the United States District Judge John F. Walter.

The declaration also observed that he has now faced a 25 -year legal captivity for the counts of which he was stated guilty.

“A lawyer in the Los Angeles area was declared guilty by a jury to receive a 2.1 million dollar knock while acting as an officer of the Nigeria state oil company in relation to the negotiation of favorable perforation rights for a branch of a Chinese state oil company.

“Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, 58 years old, aka” Polie “, of Valencia, who practiced immigration, family and the law on personal injuries outside an office in Koretown, was declared guilty of three counties of transactional money recycling, a tax evasion count and a countdown of justice.

“The district judge of the United States John F. Walter has planned a conviction of the sentence of 1 December, at that time Okoronkwo will have to face a maximum legal sentence of 10 years in federal prison for any count of the illegal monetary of transactions, up to 10 years in federal prison for the count of justice and the count of justice and the justice account and the declaration of the known justice.

Punch Metro was unable to obtain the defendant’s reaction as at the time of the presentation of this relationship because it is in the custody of the FBI. (Punch)

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