A Boston man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after an Iowa-based company raised suspicions about a life insurance policy.

The investigation began nearly two years ago after a man who sometimes went by the name Kellerman Jason Zheng made a claim on a $1 million life insurance policy. Investigators in the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau and others discovered Zheng had posed as his dead brother to buy more than two dozen life insurance policies around the country.

He then filed more than 20 claims with a fake death certificate claiming his brother drowned in China in August of 2018. His brother actually died of a heart attack in 2015.

Three of the life insurance policies had been issued by Iowa-based companies. The potential pay-out of $2 million. A federal judge has ordered Zheng to pay $49,000 in restitution. He’ll be on probation for three years once he’s released from federal prison.

Radio Iowa