Councils have been urged by Whitehall to make greater use of their legal powers to tackle benefit fraud. It came as two London councils ended successful prosecutions against an actor and composer as part of local government's crackdown on bogus claimants. Camden LBC revealed it had successfully clawed back £55,000 in fraudulent claims made by a local resident, Alexander Oborin, over the past six years. Mr Oborin claimed housing benefit on the basis of low paid earnings of £350 a month. But checks carried out by Camden's investigators revealed he had two self-employed jobs, as an actor and call centre worker. He was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and ordered to repay the benefit money. Hounslow LBC has prosecuted college lecturer Marco Mastrocola from Feltham for lying about income from a second job as a music composer. He falsely claimed more than £2,000 of council tax benefit by failing to declare all his income, and has been fined £400 and ordered to pay court costs. A senior Whitehall source told The MJ: ‘We've been keen to stress to local authorities they have ample scope to prosecute fraudsters during these tough economic times.'