Handing Out Cash in a Potato Chip Bag

Greco (right) handed a potato chip bag with cash to a reporter

A long time advisor to New York City mayor Eric Adams has been suspended from his re-election campaign after she gave cash in an empty potato chip bag to a journalist. For the record it was sour cream and onion flavoured chips.

Winnie Greco, who is ethnic Chinese, met up with The City's Katie Honan at Whole Foods, where Greco at first offered her the chip bag as a snack. According to Honan, she refused, but Greco insisted she keep it, and then the two parted ways.

When Honan got to the subway station, she looked inside and saw that there was a red envelope stuffed with cash -- one $100 bill and several $20 bills.

The red envelope was stuffed with over US$100

She freaked out and called her editor, and then tried to call Greco back, telling her could not take the money and had to return it. But Greco claimed she was not in the area anymore.

The City promptly reported what happened to the city's Department of Investigation, and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn contacted the newspaper's lawyers.

In response, Adams' campaign spokesman, Todd Shapiro said, "We are shocked by these reports," and added "Winnie Greco holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all volunteer-related activities."

But it was Greco's lawyer, Steven Brill, who had to somehow spin the narrative to explain the red envelope that made the situation even worse.

He claimed it was common in Chinese culture to give cash to reporters "in a gesture of friendship and gratitude."

"I grant you this looks odd," Brill said. "But I assure you that Winnie's intent was purely innocent."

Honan doesn't know why Greco gave her money

He said her attempt to give money to the reporter might have been "misconstrued" and that she is "apologetic and embarrassed."

Does anyone actually buy this apparent explanation?

The reporter Honan, who covers City Hall, was asked by the CBC if she knew why Greco gave her the money and Honan said she didn't know why.

But the way Brill explains it as a cultural thing just looks terrible, and it also makes it look like all ethnic Chinese reporters accept red envelopes!

For the record no one in Hong Kong gives lai see in Cantonese or hong bao in Mandarin to reporters. It is absolutely forbidden.

However on the Chinese mainland, this practice is very common. Since reporters' base salary is very low, they often pad it by collecting hong bao and writing stories praising whichever companies that gave it to them.

Many years ago in 2007 in Beijing, I witnessed this first hand when I accompanied a reporter to an innocuous event. She was handed a hong bao of 200 yuan, which wasn't much, but the reporter refused it outright.

The public relations person politely tried to explain it was "transportation money" to compensate for the trouble of getting to the event, but the reporter flatly said she didn't need the money because our company would reimburse her for the transportation costs.

It went back and forth for a few minutes until the PR person gave up.

But apparently those covering the oil and gas industry, and probably now electric cars would get very thick red envelopes...

Nevertheless, halfway around the world in New York, why would someone even consider giving out red envelopes to a reporter?

In any event, Greco was already investigated last year by the FBI, and for her close ties to China, and this latest incident will surely be probed further. It's going to be hard for Greco to spin the story out of a sour cream and onion chip bag...