Not-So-Living Buddha

Tokyo officials wanted to celebrate with the city's oldest man. The only trouble was, they discovered he had been dead a long time:

His granddaughter told investigators Kato holed up in his room about 30 years ago after declaring he wanted to be a living Buddha, police and Tokyo officials said. They believe Kato died soon after that.

Tokyo police were investigating possible crimes on suspicion Kato’s family received pension money of the man and his dead wife.

Unless his bank account has just been accumulating interest for 30 years, someone has been taking money out. For "expenses". For the old man. Yeah, that's the ticket!

So he wasn't really the oldest,
but his relatives were the boldest -
paying him formal respect,
while cashing his pension checks.