Police have been quietly looking into the death of a key figure of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, who headed the authority’s anti-money-laundering division.

A 25-year employee of CIMA, Judiann Myles’s lifeless body was found on April 3 in a blazing car on an empty lot in the Caribbean island.

The Cayman News Service reported that it took three days before police confirmed the deceased was the woman just appointed the country’s AML chief in June 2024.

A highly trained, 47-year-old white-collar crime investigator, Ms Myles honed her skills with the World Bank, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, the Financial Stability Institute and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

CIMA this week issued a statement of profound sadness on her death, describing her as a highly valued member.

They said she was “a vibrant, compassionate individual whose warmth, kindness and unwavering commitment left a lasting impact on everyone who had the privilege of working with her”.

The Cayman News Service said: “Police have remained tight-lipped about the progress of the investigation into Ms Myles’s death since her body was found a week ago in a blazing car on an empty lot in Lookout Gardens in Bodden Town.

“So far, the police have offered no information about how she died or any indication of any arrests or suspects in the case, though they have implied that this was an isolated incident.”

The Cayman monetary authority called her a “colleague, mentor and friend” and stated, “her passing is a significant loss to the CIMA family and the wider regulatory community.”

Ms Myles earned the certified anti-money-laundering specialist designation in 2006, was an associate member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners since 2014 and earned the Claritas Investment Programme Certificate from the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute in 2015. She was also trained as a mutual evaluation assessor by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force in 2016.