Beauty pageant winner who stole items from hotels for 5 years... It turned out to be due to ‘this condition’ [Health Talk]

[Financial News] A Republic of Singapore beauty pageant winner who repeatedly stole items while staying at various hotels over the past five years has been caught.
According to Shin Min Daily News on the 16th, ‘Tania’ Tan Yi Long (34), who has both won and competed in multiple beauty pageants, was sentenced to eight months in prison at a trial held on the 13th.
The court found Tania guilty on a total of 10 charges, including four counts of theft and one count of mischief involving property damage.
According to the report, from November 2024 to February 2025, Tania stayed at several hotels in the Republic of Singapore and is accused of stealing curtains, table lamps, telephones, clocks, paintings, bedding, and other items worth about 4,000 Singapore dollars (approximately 4.56 million won).
On November 22, 2024, Tania stole curtains, a clock, a telephone, and other items worth 1,281 Singapore dollars (about 1.46 million won) from Hotel A in the Republic of Singapore. Just three days later, on November 25, she checked into Hotel B and, upon checking out the same day, fled with an electric kettle, umbrellas, paintings, and other items worth 1,395 Singapore dollars (about 1.59 million won).
In December 2024, at Hotel C, she stole items such as sofa cushions, bed sheets, a clock, a telephone, and a toothbrush holder worth 280 Singapore dollars (about 320,000 won). In February 2025, she committed another theft at a different lodging facility, taking table lamps, a mattress, telephones, hangers, and other items worth 951 Singapore dollars (about 1.08 million won).
Tania engaged in similar behavior in 2020 as well. At that time, she had been arrested on charges of stealing tableware from a restaurant, documents from a hospital, and another person’s helmet from a parking lot.
The Institute of Mental Health, Singapore (IMH) diagnosed Tania with obsessive-compulsive disorder and hoarding disorder. Her lawyer also appealed for leniency, arguing that she suffers from impulse control problems stemming from mental health issues.
Tania stated, “Distressing thoughts and urges kept recurring, and the discomfort eased only when I removed certain objects from the room.”
However, prosecutors argued that because Tania committed the same type of offense within a month of receiving a treatment order on November 24, 2024, the order was no longer effective.
The medical institution that assessed Tania’s mental health likewise concluded that she was not in a state of significantly impaired judgment or other serious mental disturbance at the time of the offenses, and that her mental condition did not materially influence her crimes.
Meanwhile, Tania was crowned Miss Mermaid Singapore in 2017 and Miss Grand Taiwan in 2018, and she has represented the Republic of Singapore in several other international beauty pageants.

Hoarding disorder (Hoarding disorder) is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder characterized by an obsessive inability to discard possessions and an excessive accumulation of items, to the point that it interferes with daily life.
Hoarding disorder typically begins in adolescence. The severity may be mild at first, but it gradually worsens with age and often becomes a serious problem by the mid-30s.
People with hoarding disorder feel a strong urge to acquire and keep items, and they experience significant distress even at the thought of discarding or getting rid of their possessions.
Of course, some people may simply hold on to things out of frugality, but if discarding items makes you anxious or worried that you might need them later, it is likely a form of hoarding-related obsessive thinking. As these obsessive thoughts about hoarding intensify, they can progress into full-blown Hoarding disorder, in which a person is unable to throw away virtually anything and compulsively accumulates items.
Hoarding disorder is also referred to as ‘hoarding obsessive-compulsive disorder’ or ‘hoarding syndrome,’ and it is surprisingly common, affecting an estimated 2 to 5 out of every 100 people.
Because people with this condition do not discard items and only accumulate them, a typical sign is a home filled with clutter such as waste paper and boxes. An extreme form, known as animal hoarding, in which a person obsessively keeps an excessive number of animals, also falls under this category.

The cause of Hoarding disorder is thought to involve abnormalities in the functioning of the brain’s frontal lobes, which make it difficult to plan decisions and actions and to judge the necessity of items appropriately, leading to a default behavior of keeping and storing things.
Anxiety and stress can also exacerbate Hoarding disorder. Various pressures and difficulties in everyday life can heighten anxiety, and in response, the urge to seek stability and a sense of safety by accumulating possessions may become stronger.
In addition, if someone has experienced anxiety or discomfort in the past due to specific events or situations involving possessions, such memories may contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive symptoms related to hoarding.
Without treatment, symptoms generally persist with little change throughout a person’s life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is known to be one of the effective treatments for Hoarding disorder. It involves identifying obsessive thoughts and behaviors and gradually modifying them, using various techniques such as cognitive training for decision-making and response-prevention strategies.
In therapy, patients work with professionals to accurately identify their patterns of acquiring and keeping items in daily life, learn ways to break those patterns, and practice methods for discarding unnecessary possessions.
People with Hoarding disorder tend to focus excessively on acquiring and keeping things. To counter this, it is helpful to reduce the fixation on possessions by engaging in alternative activities such as exercise or social gatherings.
Because Hoarding disorder is not a condition that can be treated on one’s own, ongoing support from mental health professionals is essential for successful treatment.
moon@fnnews.com Moon Young-jin Reporter