Yikes.

There was a nasty surprise awaiting passengers in the arrivals hall at Rio De Janeiro’s Galeao International Airport on Monday.

Along with the relatives carrying flowers and taxi drivers waiting with name boards there were lines of off-duty police with banners that had a far more ominous message: “Welcome to Hell”.

“Police and firefighters don’t get paid,” the banners, in English and Portuguese, went on. “Whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe”. Photos of the protest have been widely shared on social media and in the Brazilian press. The image above was posted on the photo sharing site Imgur, where it was viewed more than three million times in less than a day.