Franklin Man Arrested for Theft of Thousands in Cash, $10M in Cryptocurrency

A Franklin man was arrested on July 24 after allegedly stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from his ex-girlfriend.

Kirk West, 58 years old, was charged with theft over $250,000 and booked in the Williamson County Jail on a $1 million bond.

Franklin Police said West stole $400,000 in U.S. currency and 5,534,307 XRP Ledger cryptocurrency, with an equivalent value of more than $10 million, from two safes belonging to Nancy Jones. WKRN reports Jones is the widow of country music icon George Jones.

According to an FPD news release, West was arrested at the Nashville International Airport less than 24 hours after Franklin Police began to investigate the theft with help from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and airport authorities.

According to an affidavit filed in a Williamson County court, Jones contacted her granddaughter and “requested that she secure her jewelry and cash from the safe after she suspected Mr. West was cheating on her,” but found the large sum of money missing.

“Mr. West was the only person besides Ms. Jones who had the private key, essentially a PIN code to access the wallet,” the affidavit reads.

Jones was able to recover most of the cryptocurrency with the help of attorneys, but not 483,205 XRP, valued at about $1 million.

West is described as a “long-time romantic partner” of Jones, who kicked him out of her Canterbury Rise home on June 28.

“Ms. Jones received a phone call from Mr. West, who advised her that he would send five million dollars of the cryptocurrency funds back to her bank account but that was all she would get,” the affidavit reads.