Rao’s Restaurant sits deep in the heart of Harlem – a hangout known for wealthy businessmen, mob bosses, actors and movie directors. Old stomping ground, too, for Richard “Bo” Dietl, the street-smart, urbane private investigator who’s internationally renowned for his investigations. It’s early 1990 and he’s sitting in session with Jordan Belfort, the infamous CEO who ran Stratton Oakmont, the Queens-based “fugazy” trading firm.

Belfort, in 1999, faced charges of fraud and stock manipulation and operated a boiler room as part of a penny stock “pink sheet” scam. Back then, Dietl provided private security for Belfort. In fact, in the movie, “The Wolf Of Wall Street” – Dietl plays himself as the real-life P.I. for Belfort.

In that particular scene, Dietl cuts a menacing stare at him. Belfort nervously pops a couple of pills. “The last time you took those … pills.” Dietl’s face is visibly angry as his gravelly voice roars. “I hadda pick your head out the fuckin’ macaroni.”

Looking back at the Jordan Belfort incident, Dietl shakes his head. “Jordan doesn’t talk to me any more. Suddenly he thinks he’s fuckin’ Robin Hood. This guy is trash – garbage. This guy should be giving million and millions of dollars back to these people he robbed. Not only that, he was always out for himself,” Dietl contends. “He turned in his own people; he was a rat.”

Today Dietl is more than a private investigator. He’s an actor, author, serial entrepreneur, ex-detective, ex-politician, Imus in the Morning radio host and regular TV personality. Back in 2012, he was even the face for an Arby’s commercial, promoting their famous roast beef sandwich.

Dietl eventually capitalized on his business savvy when he grabbed the bull by the horns and wrote “Business Lunchatations,” a story about networking and business strategies that rose to #5 on Amazon’s Business Best Seller List.

But most of all, he’s a professional investigator, he says, because he loves his work. That’s why the shingle: “Beau Dietl & Associates” still hangs on his door at One Penn Plaza in Manhattan. His office on the 50th floor is festooned with countless plaques and awards.

Dietl's company, BDA, one of the top-notch investigative and security firms in the nation, is a full-service organization providing a wide variety of investigative and security services to corporate and individual clients worldwide. In 2010, Dietl formed Beau Dietl Consulting Services (BDCS). His company recruits temporary and permanent placements in the IT, finance and business verticals for global leaders and Fortune 500 companies with clients such as JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Ernst & Young, to name a few.

Dietl remains at the vanguard of corporate security. His cyber division, Electronic Risk Management Solutions (ERMS) is always one step ahead of hackers and the security systems that most firms are using. His advanced security suite, developed by head cyber intelligence specialists is state-of-the-art technology for anti-hacking.

A native of Queens, the private detective grew up with Tony Salerno, a New York mobster who served as front boss of the Genovese crime family in the 1980s. “We’re from the same neighborhood,” he said. However, Dietl took a different path and joined the NYPD, later becoming a gold shield detective before he went on to greater things.

As a highly decorated ex-cop, he’s been lucky to be in “Goodfellas” and countless other movies. Dietl's memoir: “One Tough Cop,” which was turned into the movie “Bad Lieutenant,” starring Harvey Keitel, tells his life story as a cop. There’s one exception to the script, he says. He never did any drugs – that’s pure fiction. “That’s the case where they raped and carved 27 crosses in the chest of this nun in Harlem,” Dietl remarks about the homicide case. “Former Mayor Edward I. Koch labeled it, the most vicious crime in New York City history in 1981.”

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As a hard-nosed detective, Dietl always manages to stumble onto strange and macabre cases. He recalls being one of the lead detectives in the Palm Sunday Massacre in 1984, which turned out to be one of the bloodiest slayings in New York history. It was a mass murder in Brooklyn that resulted in the death of ten people: three women, a teenage girl and six children. “I wanted to catch these motherfuckers that did this. And I was one of the arresting officers in that case,” Dietl explained. “It was a case where 10 Hispanics were murdered – shot in the head on Liberty Avenue in Brooklyn.”

And then there’s the Lauren Spierer mystery. She was the Indiana University student who went missing in 2011. As the investigator, Dietl argues that this was a very troubling case. “We were continuously working on that case,” he explained. “We were brought in four months later and the trail was kind of cold,” he said, adding, “The initial case was flawed. These cops were the Keystone cops. Plus, in those small college towns, they march to a different beat out there.”

Obviously, Dietl’s world has moved full-circle over the years, even turning to politics. In 1986, Dietl had hungry ambitions of being a politician in New York. He ran for the Congressional Republican ticket, and lost by a close margin to Democrat Floyd Flake. Today, does Dietl have any high hopes of running for political office again? “No, I have a lot of skeletons in my closet,” he added, “And I don’t need publicity now.”

Certainly, 9/11 brings some sad memories for Dietl. The former detective mentioned how his friend who died in the towers, FBI agent John O'Neill, was prevented by the FBI from prosecuting bin Laden and other al-Qaeda members. “They had information about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts way before the Twin Towers disaster,” Dietl said. “And they never acted on that.”

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Dietl as Co-Chairman of the National Crime Commission. In 1994 Governor George Pataki appointed the ex-cop Chairman of the New York State Security Guard Advisory Council. He also served as Security Consultant to the Republican National Convention and as Director of Security for the New York State Republican Convention.

You can tell by looking at Dietl that he’s an ambitious businessman. He is always impeccably dressed: blue pinstripe suit, silk tie and handmade crocodile Peter Lobb shoes – and don’t forget the Egyptian cotton shirt – he basks in his business shrewdness. His net worth is an estimated $10 million. Dietl still remembers running a successful fish-oil business and since then, has launched Bo Dietl’s One Tough Computer Cop, a software program that scans a computer, with software geared to protect teenagers from cyber riff-raff. It also allows the owners to use a simple method to see if the computer has been accessed or used inappropriately.

In the end, Dietl adjusts his gun on his hip. He walks down the hallway towards the entrance, his gait still strong and quick. He’s been shot and stabbed countless times as an ex-cop – never mind that – his business acumen is always working 24/7. He’ll play Joe Corso, a thuggish, independent promotion man who may have ties to organized crime in Martin Scorese’s HBO “Rock n’ Roll” series. “My next project is about the music industry with the corruption and all the payola,” Dietl says, smiling as he rushes back to the office to prepare for his next role.