Police in St. Petersburg staged the fake murder of the head of Russian training academy in a sting to catch suspects who allegedly were plotting to kill the woman, authorities said Wednesday.

The elaborately planned scene _ to which lower-level police were not privy _ was enacted late Tuesday, when police sent a plainclothes officer to fake the murder of Kermen Basangova.

Basangova, head of the city's Polar Academy, which trains civil servants for Russia's isolated northerly regions, had uncovered financial irregularities at the academy, St. Petersburg police spokesman Vyacheslav Stepchenko said.

After an academy employee told police he had been recruited to help kill Basangova, a sting operation was organized to catch the organizer of the alleged plot.

An undercover officer faked the stabbing of Basangova on the street near her car Tuesday, Stepchenko said.

A friend of Basangova, who also was in on the sting, drove Basangova _ by then covered in fake blood _ to a hospital, which subsequently announced Basangova had died.

Several Russian news agencies ran reports on her death. After seeing the reports, the alleged mastermind met with accomplices to pay $14,000. Police intercepted the handover and arrested the suspects, Stepchenko said.

Russian crime Web sites said the suspects included a top academy official.