Ibrahim Helmy was hiding in a cupboard for the moment he had been warned about.

Police had arrived at the share house where the former transport bureaucrat was laying low, living discreetly with strangers after failing to appear before a major corruption probe.

He had paid the $175 weekly rent in cash for the unit in Sydney's southwest as, month by month, he watched his $40,000 departmental termination payment steadily dwindle.

It was the only time the 38-year-old had lived away from his parents, aside from 18 months on the NSW coast shortly after he joined the transport department in 2010.

But reality came knocking on the afternoon of September 26, as police opened a cupboard door to find the man at the centre of an alleged multimillion-dollar kickbacks scheme.

"I was getting somethi

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