Back in 2001, Sead Dizdar­evic’s name was inseparable from the Olympic movement—but it wasn’t exactly the association he sought. The smooth-talking hospitality pitchman had first burst upon the Olympic scene in 1983 by finagling the right to sell, through a modest travel agency he owned in Staten Island, New York, package tours to thousands of Americans wanting to attend the Winter Games in his native Sarajevo, Yugo­slavia. But some two decades of Olympic wheeling and dealing later, he was almost laid low when he was swept up in a cash-for-favors scandal involving Salt Lake City’s bid to host the 2002 Winter Games. A number of International Olympic Committee members were forced to resign when it was discovered that they had accepted bribes in return for voting to award the Games to Salt Lake. Two prominent Salt Lake bid officials were indicted for fraud in the scandal, and one city official intimated, in a memo that ended up in federal court, that Dizdarevic had pretty much put the idea that the Games could be bought into local Olympic officials’ heads.

Dizdarevic escaped federal prosecution himself only by agreeing to testify that he’d assisted in the payoff scheme. He admitted that he’d given $131,000 to the Salt Lake officials—which they used as bribes—hoping his favors would win him the Games’ contract to broker travel, lodging, and tickets. Though a judge ultimately threw out the fraud case, Dizdarevic says his brush with the law scared him straight.

Well, straight is a relative term, but there is no doubt that the tawdry Salt Lake episode, rather than ruining Dizdarevic’s Olympic money machine, rejuvenated and reformed it. Now make the great leap forward to Beijing. Dizdarevic, pluckier than ever at 57, is sipping sugary espresso in the 26th-floor executive lounge of the Sofitel Wanda hotel, the French chain’s luxury flagship in Asia. His Olympic hospitality firm, Jet Set Sports, of Far Hills, New Jersey, owns the rights to 175 rooms in the Sofitel, plus the $20,000-a-night presidential suite, for this month’s Games.

That’s nearly half of the five-star hotel, for 18 days, paid in full. And the Sofitel is but one property in Jet Set’s vast portfolio of high-end Beijing hotels, making Dizdarevic the must-see man for corporations heading to the Olympics.

Still, on a recent swing through Beijing to nail down final arrangements, Dizdarevic is feeling fleeced. A Sofitel manager is asking $65 a head for buffet breakfasts during the Games, twice the hotel’s normal rate. The hotelier is also demanding that Dizdarevic pay extra for the grand ballroom, where Jet Set plans to wine and dine hundreds of clients for BHP Billiton, the Australian mining colossus. Annoyed, Dizdarevic counters with what he calls the Jet Set model: a package price for food, drink, and facilities for 7,800 meals, including a “guaranteed” 40 percent profit margin for Sofitel.

“You should capitalize on the Olympics, but that doesn’t mean you have a license to steal,” he scolds the nattily dressed Frenchman. “Remember, I have other options, even for breakfast.”

“For everything,” the young manager demurs, in heavily accented English, “you have options.”