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. 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. 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.