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The Montreal police department filed a single petty cash expense claim of $524,937.50 in October, nearly doubling its petty cash expenditures for the year in one shot.

The entry, which gives little explanation of what the cash was for, shows the payment was authorized Oct. 14 by a member of the police force whose rank is not known. It was approved on the same day that an assistant police chief authorized a separate $25,102 “petty cash” expense.

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The Montreal Gazette discovered both entries were added to city records since the newspaper revealed three weeks agothat the police force had filed more than $1 million as “petty cash” expenses in the past two years.

The new $524,937.50 and $25,102 expense claims are identified as having been taken from a fund labelled “Petite Caisse Enquête VDM” (“City of Montreal investigation petty cash”).

The police department has refused for more than a week to answer the Montreal Gazette’s questions about how and why it spent half a million dollars in “petty cash” in one shot.

However, Commander Marie-Claude Dandenault, who is in charge of police communications, contacted La Presse to give the police department’s explanation about the expense. Dandenault told that newspaper the $524,937.50 expense was “exceptional” and was handled according to rules.