EXCLUSIVE: Notorious British criminal and millionaire slum landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten is bankrolling Mugabe’s ruthless wife ‘Gucci Grace’ to be the world’s first female dictator

Source: dailymail

• Secret documents show links between Robert Mugabe's wife and criminal

• He fled Britain after being branded 'emissary of the devil' by a judge

• Hoogstraten was implicated in brutal slaying of gangland rival 

• Grace Mugabe is 'dictator in waiting' as husband Robert's health falters

• She is launching bid to become world's first female dictator 

• But lavish spending includes $300,000 diamond-encrusted headboard

• Also spent  £2m on shopping this year including 33 pairs of Gucci shoes

• Mugabe purged cabinet of all rivals including deputy Joyce Mujuru 

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By ANDREW MALONE FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 15:44, 12 December 2014 | UPDATED: 03:25, 13 December 2014

Notorious for her foreign shopping sprees and obsession with Ferragamo shoes, Grace Mugabe has long been a figure of derision in Zimbabwe.

Now the 49-year-old - known as 'Disgrace,' 'Gucci Grace' or the 'First Shopper' - is launching an astonishing bid to become the world's first female dictator - backed with millions in cash from a deeply unsavoury British millionaire.

Grace, who has hitherto only been interested in sex, shoes and shopping after Mugabe plucked her from the presidential typing pool, is being secretly bankrolled by Nicholas van Hoogstraten, the British slum landlord who fled to Zimbabwe in 2007.

Secret documents obtained by MailOnline - compiled by Mugabe's intelligence chiefs, who carry out surveillance on all those close to the president – claim that Hoogstraten is paying millions to Grace to help fund her campaign.

Hoogstraten, one of the largest landowners in Zimbabwe, where he lives in a hotel with a rotating cast of female guests, is named in the documents as giving $62m to bankroll Grace's presidential bid. 

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Grace Mugabe, who has hitherto only been interested in sex, shoes and shopping after Mugabe plucked her from the presidential typing pool, is being secretly bankrolled by Nicholas van Hoogstraten, left, the British slum landlord who fled to Zimbabwe in 2007

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Dictator in waiting: Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe flanked by his wife Grace at the canonisations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII in Saint Peter's Square on April 27, 2014 in Vatican City, Vatican

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Ninety-year-old Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is - quite literally - paving the way for his wife's ascent to power with the naming of a street Grace Mugabe Way

Moment Grace Mugabe is declared Secretary for Women's Affairs

A woman of enormous appetites, Grace has spent £2m on shopping this year, including 62 pairs of Ferragamo shoes and 33 of Gucci, 12 diamond rings, a $115,000 Rolex and - most astonishingly - a $300,000 diamond-encrusted headboard. The papers also show she has spent £30,000 on lingerie, with Jean Yu and Strumpet her favourite brands.

Before Grace and her husband were banned in 2002 from travelling to Europe due to human rights violations, her favourite destination was London, where her favourite shop is Harrods, but was equally at home in Paris, New York or Rome.

After one trip to London, where she stayed in a suite at Claridges with dozens of bodyguards in tow, she was asked how she could justify spending so much on designer shoes while people starved. 'I have very narrow feet, so I can only wear Ferragamo.' 

She and Hoogstraten make an unusual pair. In return for his support, the Briton is promised a bigger share in a vast power plant that supplies the entire country with electricity 'if he pays for her (Grace Mugabe) to ascend to the presidency' - something she has pledged to achieve by 'eliminating' all her opponents.