An NYPD rookie was arrested Monday night after allegedly burglarizing his childhood friend’s Bronx apartment and then repeatedly using police databases to track the investigation into his own crime.
Officer Luis Triunfel, 33, was released without bail following his Tuesday night arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court, where a judge ordered him to surrender his passport. The officer, who joined the department only in May 2024 and was assigned to the 28th Precinct in Central Harlem, has since been suspended without pay, the NYPD confirmed.
Prosecutors allege Triunfel broke into the first-floor apartment on Boynton Avenue in the Soundview section around 12:15 a.m. On Aug. 31. He allegedly made off with a shopping cart containing a single black metallic safe secured with a key lock. The safe held approximately $9,500 in cash, $38,500 in gold jewelry, the victim’s passport, his U.S. Permanent residency card, his social security card, and the titles to his vehicles, according to the complaint.
The burglary was captured on video surveillance, but Triunfel allegedly returned to the apartment later that same day and damaged the system in an attempt to destroy the evidence.
The officer’s alleged abuse of NYPD resources began even before the break-in. One day prior to the burglary, on Aug. 30, Triunfel allegedly used his department-issued cell phone to run a search on the victim’s license plate, according to the District Attorney’s office. Following the theft, he allegedly accessed the department’s database on Sept. 3 and again on Sept. 7 to look up the report on the heist.
His final database query came Monday, when he searched for his own name. He was arrested that same evening.
Triunfel now faces charges of burglary, grand larceny, tampering with physical evidence, and computer trespass. The computer trespass charge stems specifically from his unauthorized use of restricted law enforcement databases for personal purposes — a separate felony layered atop the underlying theft.
The case exposes a striking breach of trust on multiple levels: between an officer and the public, and between childhood friends. The victim had apparently known Triunfel long before the suspect ever pinned on an NYPD shield, yet prosecutors say that familiarity did not prevent the alleged predawn raid on his home.
The 28th Precinct, where Triunfel was stationed, patrols Central Harlem, a neighborhood roughly eight miles from the Soundview apartment he allegedly targeted. His brief tenure with the department — barely four months from academy graduation to arrest — marks one of the shortest careers on record before a felony arrest.
The investigation into Triunfel’s alleged conduct is ongoing, and additional charges remain possible depending on what forensic analysis of his department phone and database queries reveals. His attorney did not immediately return a call for comment following the arraignment.