BlockBeats news, on July 31, according to FinanceFeeds, Nancy Jones, the widow of American country music legend George Jones, lost $17 million worth of XRP in a scheme orchestrated by her ex-boyfriend Kirk West.
West was arrested in July 2025, allegedly taking advantage of his access to Nancy Jones's assets to steal cash and a hardware wallet. Court documents show that West stole more than $400,000 in cash and a Ledger hardware wallet containing over 5.5 million XRP tokens from two safes in Nancy Jones's home in Franklin on June 26, 2025.
The 58-year-old Kirk West met Nancy Jones shortly after George Jones passed away in 2013, pretending to be wealthy and quickly fell in love with Nancy, moving into her home. Court documents show West had long lied about his finances and was convicted of bank fraud in 2016, at which time Nancy paid off his related debts. West pretended to be very knowledgeable about cryptocurrency and convinced Nancy to invest in XRP, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and other digital assets. This trust gave him access to her crypto wallet, which ultimately facilitated the subsequent theft.
