A businessman has been charged with obtaining £7,000 in housing benefit for a house he did not own.
Benefit fraud investigators claim property developer Jagmohan Malhotra continued to keep benefit of his former tenant of a house in Wallsend, two and a half years after he had sold the property.
Mr Malhotra, 43, of Darras Hall, Newcastle, is a director of five companies in the region.
He pleaded not guilty to theft before North Tyneside magistrates, after being arrested as part of Operation Link, a joint scheme between Northumbria Police, North Tyneside Council and the Benefits Agency.
Mr Malhotra is accused of stealing £6,995 from North Tyneside Borough Council between January 5, 1998 and June 12, 2000, and now faces a trial at Newcastle Crown Court.
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