The anti-corruption body also recommended that the Director of Public Prosecutions consider charges be laid against a senior executive at contractor UGL, after it found that that executive, Kevin McCarthy, gave Mr Camilleri $428,000 in a series of payments soon after UGL won a $1.4 billion contract for train maintenance.

The ICAC also recommended the DPP consider charges against Mr Camilleri's sister Carmen Attard, a Housing NSW employee, Mr Camilleri's daughter Jessica, for whom he corruptly obtained the funds, and another RailCorp employee.

And it made corruption findings against two former employees from the contractor Everything Infrastructure – Anthony Courtman and Mark Ross-Smith - who had given Mr Camilleri tens of thousands of dollars.

Between February 2012 and February 2013 Mr Camilleri, who was paid more than  $300,000 a year in his job as the most senior RailCorp official in charge of train maintenance, obtained more than $1.6 million from colleagues and contractors.

The reason he needed the money, Mr Camilleri told a long list of professional contacts including the then chief executive of RailCorp Rob Mason, was to help his daughter, Jessica, who he said had been the victim of identity theft and financial fraud.

As Mr Camilleri became deeper in debt to his colleagues, and as the amounts he attempted to borrow became yet larger, the claims he made about his daughter's situation became increasingly outlandish.

Nevertheless, he managed to obtain money from more than  50 RailCorp employees, in part because of his hard-won reputation over 30 years in the railways. He also obtained money from contractors hoping to win business from the organisation.

In her report into what it called "Operation Spector", released on Monday, ICAC Commissioner Megan Latham rejected Mr Camilleri's claims that he believed the stories his daughter told him about why she needed the money. He knowingly deceived the people he took money from, the report said.

From about 2008, Mr Camilleri started providing large amounts of funds to his daughter Jessica, once an employee of the Ambulance Service.

By about 2012, after cashing out his personal leave and exhausting his savings, Mr Camilleri started to borrow money from colleagues for Jessica who, at various times, said she was being extorted and faced huge legal bills to recover funds from banks.

During his career in the railways, where he had worked for 37 years, Mr Camilleri had risen to the rank of general manager, maintenance contract and commercial, in part on account of an aggressive reputation. He was known as an "attack dog" and a "head-kicker", and refused to socialise with fellow employees because he could be called upon to make decisions about their future.

Nevertheless, he started borrowing from them heavily. Mr Mason, for instance, went to the bank with Mr Camilleri to withdraw $10,000 for Jessica. Mr Camilleri also borrowed from others below him in the organisation, and from contractors.

The largest payments to Mr Camilleri were from Mr McCarthy, who had been known Mr Camilleri for years and who was UGL's bid manager for a seven-year train maintenance deal called the L3C contract. That contract was signed in Devember 2011, before Mr McCarthy started making the payments to Mr Camilleri.

In its report, the Commission found that Mr McCarthy knew UGL's business interests would benefit from maintaining good relations with Mr Camilleri. In late 2012, Mr McCarthy also applied for a senior job at Sydney Trains.

The ICAC said Mr McCarthy's claim the payments to Mr Camilleri were personal loans were disingenuous, in part because he did not disclose them.

"His desire for secrecy is consistent with an appreciation on his part that the payments could be used to incline Mr Camilleri to exercise his public official functions in a way favourable to Mr McCarthy's interests," the commission said.

Mr McCarthy was dismissed from his job as the GM of Projects & Tendering at UGL on Monday following the finding against him. UGL was last week revealed to have made secret payments to Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying.

As well as Mr Camilleri and Mr McCarthy, the ICAC recommended the DPP consider charges against Ms Attard, Mr Camilleri's sister, for borrowing from subordinates at Housing NSW, another RailCorp employee Sam Cassar, and Jessica. In recorded phone conversations played at the ICAC hearings, Jessica Camilleri implored her father to destroy evidence.

The commission found Mr Courtman and Mr Ross-Smith engaged in corrupt conduct by lending to Mr Camilleri when he could have benefitted them, but did not recommend that the DPP consider charges against them.

In a statement, Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian said: "We have made it absolutely clear that we will not tolerate any form of corrupt behaviour from staff or contractors working with or within our transport agencies."