A friend tweeted a link a while back to a rather entertaining news story from China:

A fake police academy in China has been exposed in a bizarre sting operation that involved undercover authentic female officers disguised as schoolgirls.

The Jiamusi People’s Police Academy, Shandong province branch, offered impressionable school leavers a three year law enforcement studies course taught by veteran officers on a new campus. The rookie officers prepared to stump up the £2,000 fees were promised their hard won diplomas would land them jobs keeping the streets safe from criminals…

The sham police school was closed after its “honorary president”, Wei Zhenhai, inadvertently exposed the scheme. He boasted about his friends in high places to two female undercover officers who visited the admission office posing as potential students. Mr Wei claimed his unique constabulary connections would help them secure posts. Genuine constables then pounced and arrested the academy’s 23 staff, including the president, Zhao Qingxin.

No doubt some of the students had expressed concern over certain aspects of the syllabus. The course on Judicial Corporal Punishment in particular had proved controversial – especially the practical sessions. But surely it’s important that police officers understand the sentences that can be handed out to convicts, and the demonstrations of the prison strap, the cane and the birch on the female students were entirely necessary and appropriate…