Credit Union Robbed by Thieves in Gorilla Masks : Thousand Oaks: Staff and customers are forced to the floor during takeover-style invasion. Disguises leave few clues to bandits’ identities.

Two robbers wearing gorilla masks and a third hiding his face behind a bandanna stormed into a Thousand Oaks credit union shortly after noon Friday, terrorizing employees and customers with shouted threats and shoves during a takeover-style holdup.

The bandanna-wearing robber waived an automatic pistol while the gorilla-masked bandits pushed the dozen or so employees and customers to the floor, police said. One of the men in the ape masks grabbed cash out of the vault, police said.

Two employees also were robbed of their jewelry during the harrowing robbery, which lasted little more than two minutes, said FBI Special Agent Larry Dick.

“They intimidated the employees and created a great deal of havoc,� Dick said. No injuries were reported.

Witnesses told police that the robbers burst into the Oaks Federal Credit Union at 600 Hampshire Road while a fourth man waited outside in a 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass stolen in Van Nuys earlier in the day.

After the robbery, the Cutlass screeched away from the credit union toward Westlake Boulevard, almost colliding with a passing car, Dick said.

The robbers escaped with “more money than the average bank robbery,� Dick said. But he refused to divulge the amount taken.

The gorilla masks--typical of Halloween masks found in novelty stores--covered the robbers’ heads entirely and made identification difficult, Dick said.

The third man wore a bandanna around his lower face and a baseball cap tucked low on his brow. Dick said the bandits were probably in their early 20s.

“It’s kind of hard to tell how old the monkeys were,� he said.

Credit union officials refused to comment on the robbery and closed the institution for the day after the incident.

“I don’t know what to think,� said one customer turned away after the robbery. The customer, who declined to give her name, said the violence of the incident was out of place in placid Thousand Oaks.

Indeed, the credit union robbed Friday was not equipped with the bulletproof glass other financial institutions in more crime-ridden areas have erected to protect their tellers, and Thousand Oaks was recently ranked the third-safest city of its size in the country.

But takeover robberies--unheard of in the city two years ago--are on the rise in Ventura County as Los Angeles-area robbers are taking the drive north more often, Dick said.

He said three takeover robberies occurred in the county last year, including one at the Point Mugu Credit Union in October that may be related to Friday’s robbery.

In that robbery, three men with stockings pulled over their heads made similar threats and demands before escaping with an undisclosed amount of money.

“Most of the robberies around here were the quiet ones, where the guy would slip a note to a teller,� said Anthony Kourounis, who managed Bank of the Oaks in Thousand Oaks for nine years.

During that period, his bank was robbed three times. Each time, it was a single robber quietly slipping a note to a teller, he said.

Correspondent Ira Stoll contributed to this article.