Hooray! Somali gunmen ambushed an Ethiopian convoy in Mogadishu! Go gunmen! Go go go! Chase out the Ethiopians!

Japan, a huge exporter of luxury goods, has imposed harsh laws to stem illegal trade with N. Korea. The luxury goods shipped to N. Korea are for the high-ranking elite, who enjoy a lavish lifestyle, quite different from that of ordinary citizens.

You know, I go for Eng tuition every Wednesday, same class as Zi Xin, and it costs a whopping $187.50 per month, even more expensive than JC tuition. Yeah, it's 3 hours, but only about 2 hours is spent teaching properly. I'm most probably quitting at the end of this month.

My Commonwealth Essay :

5. “Everything suddenly went quiet”. (Question 5)

Everything suddenly went quiet. Four masked men suddenly robbed the bustling bank, full of customers making transactions. Everything stopped abruptly, and everyone stared blankly at the robbers, their knees on the ground, and their hands in the air. The men were all wearing black long-sleeved shirts and track pants, and all of them were extremely burly. One of the men shouted in incoherent English, “GIVE ME ALL THE MONEY THAT IS IN THIS BANK NOW!” The other three men, armed with Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles, trained their guns on the petrified bank tellers. They dutifully took all the money out and stuffed them into a big sports bag the robbers had brought. One of the bank tellers tried to activate the silent alarm. However, her action did not manage to escape the experienced eyes of one of the robbers. He a warning shot, and it nearly hit the teller. It nearly gave the teller a heart attack. The robber who fired the warning shot sneered. “I saw that young lady. Better not try that again if you still want to live to see the light of day. Ha!” In five minutes, all four robbers had got what they wanted and rushed out of the bank, into a waiting Toyota Camry, and sped onto the main road, nearly crashing into many vehicles in the process.

The next day, the robbery took the entire front page of the newspaper. “Bank Of United States robbed – robbers make off with fifty billion Singapore dollars.” The police were cheesed off. This robbery should not have taken place. It was the fault of the police – they did not manage to arrive in the nick of time. By the time they arrived, the robbers were gone, and now, they were presumably going to get out of Singapore illegally. Nobody involved in the robbery could describe how they looked like – they were masked. They had worn long-sleeved shirts and their track pants covered their entire legs. Camera footage only showed four men in black robbing the bank – in five minutes they were gone. However – someone managed to see the number plate of the car they fled – and a nation wide search for the car began.

Within twenty-four hours, the car was found, in a car park in Hougang. The police searched the car for any possible clues as to where the robbers had gone. The police found a street directory of Singapore – when they opened it, they saw that someone had used a highlighter to highlight the way from the Bank Of United States to Changi Airport. The robbers must have been foreigners – they needed a street directory to find their way to the Changi Airport. They must have fled the country! With five billion dollars! The search for the men had just begun.

At Changi Airport, five ordinary looking men sat at the arrival hall. Kim Chae Seon was a North Korean secret agent. He had been sent by the North Korean government to raise money for the secret division of the North Korean government – Bureau 39. He was given a fake Sri Lankan passport to travel to UlaanBaatar, Mongolia, to meet with his fellow robbers, who had met on a high-security Internet website. Hassan Ahmed Hirsi was a Somali warlord. He had access to fast computers, but lacked money to buy weapons. He somehow managed to visit the website and join one of the most well organised bank robberies in the world. Since people from Somalia always caused suspicions, he used a forged South African passport to get to UlaanBaatar. Dumarsais Bertrand Magloire was their Haitian driver. He happened to stumble upon the website. Wanting to break out of his country’s poverty cycle and restore Haiti to its former glory, he took up the job of the driver, as he was accustomed to the dangerous, congested and disorganised streets of Port-au-Prince. Driving in a well-developed city like Singapore was child’s play to him. The other two men were Hamid Iyad Salman, from Iraq, and Vicente Gonzalez, from Cuba. Their reason for taking participating in the robbery – to become rich.

The five men boarded the Aero Mongolia flight to UlaanBaatar without any fuss. Nobody tried to stop them or anything, basically because nobody recognised them. The jet took off. It seemed that they would definitely be rich.

However, back in Changi Airport, the police checked the flight schedule. They noticed that the Aero Mongolia flight was strange. Aero Mongolia did not fly to Singapore. Why was there suddenly a special charter flight to Mongolia? Adding to the mystery was the fact that there were only five passengers on board. Could they be the ones who robbed the bank? The police had no concrete evidence. But the secret police of Mongolia was alerted and a team of Interpol agents was dispatched to UlaanBaatar to arrest the suspects.

The five men drove to the Nalaikh district of UlaanBaatar. They entered a posh, newly constructed building. They entered a meeting room, and they started discussing about how to split the money. It was decided that they would get their share based on how much they contributed to the robbery. In the end, it was decided that Kim Chae Seon would take fifteen billion, Hassan Ahmed Hirsi would also take fifteen billion, Dumarsais Bertrand Magloire would take eight billion, Hamid Iyad Salman and Vicente Gonzalez would take six billion each. They would now leave to their countries with their money. All of them gave each other warm handshakes. Vicente Gonzalez looked out of their window. He screamed, “There are Interpol agents outside! Get ready to take up arms!”

An experienced Interpol negotiator, Tony Smith, announced through a loudspeaker, “We have you surrounded. Surrender now and nothing unpleasant will happen. Rebel, and prepared to be taken by force!” Instead, a sea of bullets rained down on the Interpol agents. If not for their bulletproof helmets, the agents who were directly under the building would have been dead.

Half an hour passed without any significant events. The five dangerous men had threatened to shoot anyone who dared to enter the building. It was easy to defend the building – it was only accessible through one main entrance. The men had a good vantage point. However, Tony Smith was an intelligent tactician. He decided to that since they could not go through the main entrance, they could go through the top – a helicopter could be used to send the agents to the top. From there, the Interpol agents could use the stairs at the roof level to get inside the building. It was brilliant idea. However, they needed to distract the men. Tony Smith began talking to the men.

Tony said, “We do not want any casualties, be it on your side or on our side. We want you to surrender peacefully.”

Kim Chae Seon shouted, “We will not surrender! If you try to take us by force, we will burn the money!”

“I’m afraid that you would be dead before you could try that. We can see what you’re doing very clearly now. Any sign that you are about to turn the money to ashes, and we will not hesitate to fire at will.”

“We have grenades and a bazooka and we are not afraid to use them. We can also make molotov cocktails easily from here.”

“What do you want us to do? You can’t escape with the money now. Just surrender.”

“If we die, the money dies with us.”

“We want to take you alive.”

Kim Chae Seon in a very difficult position. He wanted to make it back to North Korea with the money alive, but now that he was surrounded, he needed to think of an idea fast. He knew how much the Interpol wanted the money back, and he could use that to his advantage. Dumarsais had called for two Su-27 fighter jets to come and save them. Now, all they needed to do was wait and negotiate to drag the time.

By then, the agents had already arrived at the top. They had climbed down the stairs and were now in the building. They planned to shoot the men with tranquillisers. All the men except Hamid Iyad Salman ducked. Hamid fell to the ground, unconscious. Just then, they heard the roar of the engine of Su-27s. Help had arrived! The Su-27s shot down the Interpol helicopter, and both landed on a wide road next to the building. The four men left Hamid in the building and escaped. They threw smoke bombs at the agents, causing the whole room to be engulfed in thick smoke. They seized the opportunity to run to the Su-27s. They quickly got in, and the planes disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. Their destination – Pyongyang.

Upon arrival at Sunan International Airport, they four men decided how to split the money yet again. This time, the shares of Kim Chae Seon and Hassan Ahmed Hirsi would remain the same. However, the shares of both Dumarsais Bertrand Magloire and Vicente Gonzalez would become ten billion each.

Kim Chae Seon was safe in his home country. Now, the problem was getting the other three men to their home countries as well. Hamid Iyad Salman would have probably disclosed their whereabouts. They were safe in Pyongyang, but Hassan, Dumarsais, and Gonzalez could not remain in Pyongyang forever. Troops would probably be sent to patrol the North Korean border with China and Russia by now, as escape through the demilitarised zone with South Korea would have been almost impossible. However, they could still fly by air. They could send Hassan back to Somalia through by flying him to Bangkok, and from there, refuel and fly to Mogadishu. As for Dumarsais and Gonzalez, it would be easier, since both Cuba and Haiti were located in the Caribbean. They would fly Dumarsais and Gonzalez to Havana, and once they were in Cuba, both of them were safe.
Hassan was sent first. He got on board the Air Koryo plane with his briefcase of money. This flight was special – it was going to be guarded by five Mikoyan MIG-29 fighter jets. Hassan waved at his accomplices and saluted them. He then sat back, and began to prepare for his flight from Pyongyang to Bangkok. In ten minutes, he was up in the air, flying towards the distant horizon.


A Chinese satellite detected the planes flying over Chinese airspace. Chinese Interpol agents contaced their Mongolian and Singapore counterparts. The Mongolian agents immediately notified the Mongolian Air Defence Forces, and six Chengdu J-10 fighter jets were sent to intercept them. Singapore sent five F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to intercept the North Korean aircraft.

It was not long before the North Korean planes met the Mongolian planes. The Mongolian planes fired their laser-guided missiles at the MIG-29 planes. The MIG-29s, however, released their decoy flares, and soon, the Mongolian planes were out of missiles, and had to use their Vulcan cannons to shoot at the planes. However, the MIG-29s were superior to the Chengdu J-10s, and two of the Mongolian planes were down, although an MIG-29 was shot down. By now, the Singapore reinforcements had arrived. The fierce dogfight that ensued destroyed all but one Mongolian plane and three Singapore planes, although all the MIG-29s were destroyed completely. The planes then followed the Air Koryo plane, all the way to Bangkok. By then, Thai secret agents had already gathered at Suvarnabhumi Airport. They forced Hassan to surrender, and he did. He handed over all the money, and was taken into police custody.

In the end, the Bank of United States managed to get back their money. Interpol contacted Kim Chae Seon, asking him to send the money through a Macau bank, as the five robbers had all signed an agreement that, “if one of them was caught, the rest would return the money if returning money resulted in the release of him.” Thus, Hassan and Iyad were freed, and the Bank of the United States got their money back. It was certainly a very tense duration of time for all involved!

This was intended to be sent to Mrs Tham, but its 2024 words, way too many. So this is my first essay, I'm going to write a new and improved second essay, since I still have lots of time.