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A California man pleaded guilty last week to hiding his mother’s death from the federal authorities for over 30 years, collecting more than $800,000 in benefits under her name. Donald Felix Zampach, 65, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of Social Security fraud, according to the Justice Department. “This crime is believed to be the longest-running and largest fraud of its kind in this district,” US Attorney Randy Grossman said in a statement. “This defendant didn’t just passively collect checks mailed to his deceased mother. This was an elaborate fraud spanning more than three decades that required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse.” All told, beginning in 1990, the Poway man collected $830,238. He could face up to 25 years in prison, though US sentencing guidelines suggest it will more likely be a sentence of 30 to 37 months. “He is overwhelmed with regret,” Knut Johnson, Zampach’s lawyer, told The New York Times. As part of his plea deal, Zampach will forfeit the benefit, pay restitution to various lenders, and turn over the home he took possession of in his mother’s name. The benefits scheme was an elaborate one, according to the DoJ. When Zampach’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she left the US and returned to her native Japan, where she died in 1990 at age 61. Her son notified the US embassy in Tokyo of the death, but admitted to leaving blank a box for her Social Security number to avoid the government being aware of her passing, and he repeated this omission on forms for burial permits. Zampach kept up this ruse until September 2022, collecting his mother’s Social Security checks and payments from the Defense Finance Accounting Service, which pays survivors of military veterans. An audit of those over age 90 who hadn’t used their Medicare benefits helped reveal the California man’s scheme. This sort of fraud has happened in the past. In 2018, a Mexican man pleaded guilty to defrauding the government for even longer, spending 37 years collecting nearly $361,000 in government benefits after assuming the identity of a US citizen, according to The San Diego Union Tribune. In 2015, Dutch police learned that a man kept his dead mother’s body hidden for over two years and continued collecting her pension and social assistance payments. He was later caught and forced to repay 40,000 euros, according to 1 Limburg. Read More Real Housewives star Phaedra Parks reveals why she gave her son $150,000 for his 13th birthday Mastercard helping banks predict scams before money leaves customers’ accounts Vermont will pay $16.5M to settle lawsuits by foreign investors in fraudulent ski developments

Andrew Tate has lost an appeal against a court’s earlier decision to keep him under house arrest

By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) -Uber Technologies Inc, DoorDash Inc and other app-based food delivery companies filed lawsuits on Thursday seeking

Maritime nations have been finalizing a plan Thursday to slash emissions from the shipping industry to net zero by close to 2050 but experts warn the deal falls well short of what’s needed to prevent climate catastrophe

The company that wants to mine for critical minerals in southeast Nebraska has signed a deal with Stellantis, giving the automaker access to the rare earth elements used to produce high-powered magnets needed for its electric vehicles

Sweden failed Thursday to convince Turkey to lift its objections to the country joining NATO

President Joe Biden is heading to South Carolina to make the case that his economic agenda is helping keep even red states humming

WASHINGTON The Pentagon holds a strategic stockpile for germanium but currently has no inventory reserves for gallium, a

U.S. job openings slipped in May but remained at levels high enough to show the American labor market remains resilient in the face of sharply higher interest rates

Greece’s newly appointed defense minister has welcomed a de-escalation of tensions in the eastern Mediterranean

The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits rose last week, but remains at healthy levels despite the Federal Reserve’s attempt to cool the labor market by raising interest rates

WASHINGTON The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased moderately last week, pointing to only