Pop icon Justin Bieber, who recently swept the American Music Awards, faced a murder plot but the cops foiled the plan and arrested two men in connection to it.

It is reported that Dana Martin, who is serving In prison for rape and murder, hired Mark Staake and his nephew Tanner Ruane to kill the 18-year-old Canadian singer. Police claimed that the duo met the prisoner at Las Cruces prison in New Mexico.

Staake and Ruane, who are in police custody now, were reportedly hired to killed the superstar by strangling him with a necktie and a pair of pruning sheers were found in the car of one of the men arrested. It was supposed to be carried out at the singer's concert in New York last month.

The police reportedly tapped the conversation between the men over phone including that of Mr. Ruane telling Martin that the plan to kill Justin Bieber had failed.

Martin is said to be obsessed with the 18-year-old singer and even has a tattoo of him.

Justin Bieber shot to fame with the release of the seven-track 'My World' in 2009. He is the first artist to have all the songs of a debut album to feature on the Billboard Hot 100. His subsequent albums 'My World 2.0', 'Under the Mistletoe' and 'Believe' have made him even popular.

With huge fan following around the globe and 15 million albums being sold so far, Forbes magazine named him the third most powerful celebrity in the world in 2012. He also has been named as one of the 10 Most Ill-Mannered Persons of 2012 by the National League of Junior Cotillions (NLJC).