A shrewd and often unscrupulous person who advances his own interests by scheming; a hustler
Seated at separate tables to underscore their differing levels of involvement with indicted savings and loan wheeler-dealer Charles Keating, the five were fighting to regain reputations earned in a lifetime of public service.
disapproval If you refer to someone, especially in business or politics, as a wheeler-dealer, you disapprove of the way that they try to succeed or to get what they want, often by dishonest or unfair methods. someone who does a lot of complicated, often dishonest deals, especially in business or politics