Alleged XRP Thief Also Accused of Stealing Ethereum, SHIB From George Jones’ Widow

A Tennessee man charged with stealing millions of dollars worth of XRP from the widow of country music sensation George Jones has been further accused of stealing additional crypto tokens from the woman, including Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Ethereum (ETH). 

Kirk West, who until weeks ago was the live-in lover of George Jones’ widow, Nancy Jones, was arrested Friday in Nashville for allegedly stealing $400,000 in cash and a Ledger wallet containing $17 million worth of XRP from a safe in Jones’ home. 

Jones has now alleged that West, freshly her ex-boyfriend, also stole SHIB and ETH from her home during the caper, according to an affidavit attached to a restraining order Jones filed against West on Friday. The affidavit, which was reviewed by Decrypt, was first reported on by local news station WKRN.

In the affidavit, Nancy Jones claims West “seduced” her in 2013, in the months following her husband’s death, in a manner consistent with West’s alleged modus operandi of approaching “wealthy, potentially vulnerable women.” 

“Our relationship was strictly platonic, at least until Mr. West seduced me,” Jones said. 

In the years following, Jones claimed, she bankrolled West’s lifestyle and then allowed him to buy crypto on her behalf—after West became a self-proclaimed “crypto expert” in 2016, during a period in which he was living under house arrest after pleading guilty to criminal bank fraud charges.

In 2020, Jones said, West purchased sums of numerous crypto tokens on the widow’s behalf via Crypto.com and Uphold. Those tokens included XRP, SHIB, ETH, Terra (LUNC, formerly LUNA), Dogecoin (DOGE), Flare (FLR), Monero (XRM), and Songbird (SGB). 

West and Jones’ romance lasted until late last month, when Jones said she discovered that Jones was having an affair with another woman. Jones said she then promptly kicked West out of her home, where he had been living for 12 years, and shortly thereafter discovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a Ledger wallet had been taken from her safe.

While the vast majority of the value of crypto stored on the Ledger wallet was in XRP—over $19 million worth, going by peak prices reached by the red-hot token earlier this month—the wallet also contained sums of SHIB and ETH. Per the complaint filed by Jones’ attorneys, West stole a redacted amount of ETH from Jones, and roughly $16,000 worth of SHIB.

Soon after, Jones and her attorneys hired a blockchain analyst to recover the allegedly stolen crypto. They said they were able to recover most of the XRP by using a backup seed phrase for the Ledger wallet.

In the hours following his recovery of the XRP, Jones’ hired blockchain analyst, Paul Sibenik, said the ETH and SHIB in the Ledger wallet were moved to a crypto wallet Jones did not control.

“I suspect the defendant initiated the transfer after he discovered that Mrs. Jones moved the XRP to a new wallet of hers,” Sibenik said. 

That crypto has yet to be recovered, Jones’ attorneys say. The 483,000 XRP tokens allegedly stolen by West, a sum worth $1.51 million at writing, have also not been found, they said.

Jones has asked a county court in Tennessee to order West to return the crypto in question and pay her additional compensatory damages.

West is currently in police custody. An initial hearing for his criminal theft case has been set for October 23, and his bail has been set for $1,000,000, according to a court filing reviewed by Decrypt.