Had a long layover here and was walking down to the hotel shuttles to see what the day rates were. A man in a suit stopped me and offered me a good rate at one of the GRU area hotels. The rate sounded good so he told me to wait 10 minutes for the shuttle. After 10 minutes he takes me upstairs and outside where a small black mini van pulls up with a small hotel emblem on a card resting on the dash. There were no other passengers ... just the driver.

As I am familiar with GRU, I know that the hotel shuttles are always buses or at least larger van type shuttles with permanent markings and at the designated pickup point (downstairs from where we were), I got a bad feeling and told the guy I wasnt comfortable with the arrangement and went back downstairs to secure a deal with the shuttle drivers at the designated pickup point.

On the way down I stopped by the tourist info desk and told them what happened. They agreed that this was highly unusual.

While walking back to the legitimate pickup area, I saw the guy talking very friendly with a couple of Sao Paulo policemen. Being somewhat familiar with Sao Paulo, I'm not sure if this made me feel better or worse about the guy

Anyway, Im still not sure if this was a scam or not (shot, robbed, etc), and I didn't trust my instincts after a 12 hour flight over the pond to make a judgement.

Any insights on what the deal was would be appreciated.