Nigeria, Sept. 10 -- A United States judge has found Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian lawyer based in Los Angeles, guilty of receiving a $2.1 million bribe from a Chinese oil company to secure drilling rights in Nigeria.

He was said to have accepted the bribe while serving as an official of the state-owned oil firm, NNPC, now NNPC Ltd.

Mr Okoronkwo, 58, also known as "Pollie," was found guilty of three counts of money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.

The verdict was delivered on 29 August after a four-day trial in California.

Prosecutors told the court that Mr Okoronkwo, a dual US-Nigerian citizen, collected the payment in 2015 while serving as general manager of the upstream division of the...