Peter Roy Woodhouse, a 69-year-old British citizen who left home in the 1960s and cut off contact afterward, is being deported to England after running afoul of the law in Hawaii.

For his family, it will be more than a reunion: It’s a return from the dead.

Tim and Paul Woodhouse, who live in England and Scotland, had been told by their father years ago that brother Peter had died in South Africa.

In fact, Peter was alive and well — using his brother Paul’s identity for the past 40 years, officials said.

Their presumed-dead brother returned to life with what started out as a confusing phone call from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking about a Woodhouse in Honolulu.

ICE, as the government agency is known, couldn’t verify with the United Kingdom the name of the man who was to be deported.

Joy Tokunaga, a deportation officer in Honolulu, contacted Tim Woodhouse and was trying to clear up whether it was Paul or Peter Woodhouse who was in custody.

Understandably, Tim Woodhouse, who was being asked in England about a brother he didn’t think he had in Hawaii, was a bit taken aback.

"He wasn’t too sure if I was telling the truth," Tokunaga said. "It sounded a bit too far-fetched to him. But I guess in the end he did start believing it. He was just in shock because he said that he thought his brother was dead."

The last contact the family had with Peter Woodhouse was about 1967, BBC News reported. He had stowed away on the Queen Mary, was arrested in New York Harbor, and was sent to Winchester Prison in England, the news agency said.

Paul Woodhouse, 62, said that after Peter’s release from prison, he must have used Paul’s identity to get a passport to go abroad again. He was a teenager when he last saw his brother.

Paul Woodhouse said he gave U.S. immigration officials "stories" that only his brother would be able to answer questions about, according to the BBC.

The news agency said Peter, known back home by his middle name, "Roy," had been in Honolulu since 1995, "doing a bit of everything and living rough," according to half brother Paul.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Peter Woodhouse was at Oahu Community Correctional Center on criminal charges and he had already fulfilled his sentence.

For privacy reasons, she said, she couldn’t reveal what crime Peter Woodhouse had committed.

"We routinely screen inmates at that facility to identify potentially deportable aliens who are incarcerated there, and so we came across him as a result of those routine inmate interviews," Kice said.

ICE first encountered the individual who was determined to be Peter Woodhouse in January 2010, and he was later placed in custody at the federal detention center, officials said.

The BBC said Peter Woodhouse decided at some point to tell officials in Hawaii that he had been using his brother’s name.

Tokunaga said she sent Tim Woodhouse photos from the 1960s and from 2010 of the man who was in custody here.

"It wouldn’t have happened without her perseverance," Michael Samaniego, an ICE assistant field office director, said of Tokunaga’s detective work. "(Through the) regular channels, the U.K. actually declined to (initially) issue a travel document to this individual because they couldn’t substantiate his identity."

Paul Woodhouse told Scotland’s Daily Record that he’ll never know why his father, who has since died, told him that Peter died in South Africa.

Paul said he talked to his long-lost brother by phone and said, "How are you? How is the guy who has come back from the dead?" the newspaper reported.

Paul Woodhouse said he has only love and forgiveness for his brother, who now has some health problems, the BBC said.

"I know he wants to come back to Britain," Paul Woodhouse said. "He is probably just running out of options now he is getting older."