We move next door to the North Korean embassy and see at first hand how Kim Jong-un’s secretive regime is echoed in West London
We rented a property for four days alongside the unlikely £1.3m London base of Kim Jong-un's manic regime
NORTH Korea is currently the most dangerous neighbour on Earth.
Tensions are mounting across the globe as weapons-crazed dictator Kim Jong-un threatens nuclear strikes on South Korea and nearby US island territory of Guam.
But living alongside the secretive regime is a little-known reality for residents of one West London street.
The government of the poverty-ravaged country shelled out £1.3m for a seven-bedroom property in Acton in 2003 – and turned it into North Korean soil.
So we rented the property next door via Airbnb to find out how Kim’s tyranny is represented on leafy Gunnersbury Avenue.
The Embassy of North Korea is one of just three embassies outside central London - Eritrea and Cambodia are the others - and at first glance blends in among the row of seven-figure properties.
A world away from the bravado and posturing of Pyongyang, the flagpole outside the property does not fly the national flag and the embassy’s existence is low-key.
But a "threatening" visit to a local business for poking fun at the country's 'Supreme Leader' and the drama of a high-profile defection and spying accusations put Kim's British outpost in the spotlight.
The property is surrounded by security fencing, cameras and huge hedges which stop passers-by approaching.
Locals say the gates are never opened to unannounced visitors and they rarely see the people living there.
A plaque and two black Mercedes - one with a personalised PRK (People's Republic of Korea) 1D number plate - are the only signs of what lies behind the grand double-doors.
When The Sun dropped by to say hello to our new neighbours we received an eerie response which could have come straight from the streets of the secretive communist state.
We introduced ourselves to three female cleaners in the courtyard and asked if we would be able to speak to the ambassador.
The panicked-looking workers immediately glanced at each other, put down their tools, and walked inside without saying a word - closing the door behind them.
Their nervousness is understandable.
Defected former deputy ambassador Thae Yong Ho revealed how he had been asked to report back to Kim Jong Un's secret police about any signs of disloyalty or communication with Brits among staff.
He said: "In the London embassy, I was in charge of this kind of surveillance.
"I had to write back if they had any ideological changes or if they met any British or South Koreans in secret."
Mr Thae provoked the rage of the North Korean government when he fled the embassy to find refuge in South Korea last August.
Mr Thae was branded 'human scum' and a 'child rapist' in an announcement on state media.
The embarrassment led to his boss, Hyon Hak Bong, being ordered back to Pyongyang where activists fear he was thrown in a prison camp.
The defection led to the appointment of Choe Il - a more willing Kim Jong-un cheerleader who threatened to turn US territories "to ashes" in his only interview as ambassador.
Locals say the secretive operation has become even more closed-off since the defection.
Iman Khan, 20, said: "A couple of the people who used to live there used to be part of the tennis club down the road but I think that's stopped now.
"It's quite quiet, quite secretive. They've got the gates and the fences and you don't really see people coming out apart from sometimes in the official cars.
"The flag flies occasionally but apart from that you would hardly know it was there."
Alastair Preston, 21, said: "They come outside to intercept post but don't come out from behind the gate. I guess they've got rules they have to follow.
"They're very quiet, you don't really see or hear anything coming from the house. They're peaceful neighbours but I don't think there's much interaction with the community."
Another neighbour, who asked not be named, said: "When they bought the property the fences and the walls all went up.
"In the past we would occasionally get a knock on the door or a bottle of something at Christmas but none of that's happened recently.
"You hear children playing in the garden and in that way it's like living next to any other family but you don't see people popping in and out. They seem suspicious of postmen or visitors."
Officials are seen leaving and arriving at the property in diplomatic vehicles shielded by automatic gates.
The only visitor we saw at the embassy was a courier driver delivering a collection of around 20 paintings to the building.
The back garden boasts a basketball hoop, in apparent homage to Kim Jong-un's love of the US sport.
The country's Supreme Leader famously invited former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman to play in an exhibition match on Pyongyang for his birthday in 2014.
Consulate staff are sometimes heard holding barbecue parties in the back garden of the property, but with huge walls and hedges surrounding the perimeter, neighbours say they aren't expecting an invite any time soon.
One local who did receive an unexpected call was barber Karim Nabbach of M&M Hair Academy in nearby Ealing.
Two officials paid a sinister visit to his salon after he used a picture of Kim Jong-un to offer a discount to customers having a "bad hair day".
The irate enforcers demanded the picture be taken down as it was mocking the 'Supreme Leader' before police were called.
Three years on from the bizarre drop-in which made headlines around the world, Karim, 29, said: "We've quite directly felt their presence and how their values are quite different to those we have in Britain.
"At first we thought it was a joke because they came in wearing these suits and acting very formally and it all seemed like a bit of a parody.
"But when we realised they were being serious I told them at the time 'this is England and we live in a democracy'. They seemed incredulous that we would resist their aggression and demands.
"It was all tongue-in-cheek and wasn't meant as a political statement but their reaction did and the way they tried to throw their weight around did shake us up.
"I couldn't believe they'd had the audacity to threaten us like that.
"It did provide us with a tiny snapshot of the sort of oppression people live in over there. They clearly feared the reaction if this ever somehow got back to Kim Jong-un."
The Embassy of North Korea did not respond to The Sun's request for an interview.
Meanwhile, the rogue nation's state media continues to pump out apocalyptic threats of nuclear missile strikes in a war of words with U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Sunday, a statement warned if America takes part in a military exercise with South Korea next week it will bring an “uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war”.
An editorial in North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun read: “The joint exercise is the most explicit expression of hostility against us, and no one can guarantee that the exercise won’t evolve into actual fighting.
"If the United States is lost in a fantasy that war on the peninsula is at somebody else’s doorstep far away from them across the Pacific, it is far more mistaken than ever."
