Bank Kidnap Victim Freed : Crime: Man is abducted after using ATM, robbed and given an electric shock before being left in a Malibu canyon.

A 41-year-old Thousand Oaks man was kidnaped from an ATM machine in broad daylight, shocked with an electric weapon and driven around by his captors for three hours before being dumped in a Malibu canyon, authorities said Friday.

The victim said he was on his way to his car Thursday after depositing a check at Coast Federal Bank at 32110 Agoura Road about 2:10 p.m. when a man in a green van pulled up, identified himself as a law enforcement officer and told him to get in, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective John Benedict said.

The victim climbed into the rear of the van, Benedict said. The driver--described as a short and squat man in his 40s with brown hair, a pony tail and mustache--drove around for a while before turning and firing a Taser at the victim and then giving him an electric shock, Benedict said. The Taser fires a dart, connected by thin metal wires to a hand unit that can administer electrical shocks.

The man then handcuffed the victim, taped his hands to his feet and tossed a blanket over him, Benedict said. For the next three hours the victim was driven around with the blanket over his eyes and moved from the van to a sedan driven by another man, Benedict said.

“Obviously, he had the feeling he was going to be killed along the way,” Sgt. Tom Garagliano said.

In the course of the ordeal, the abductors robbed the man of $200.

Eventually, the man was tossed from one of the vehicles--with his eyes covered, he said he could not tell which vehicle--into Corral Canyon in Malibu, Benedict said. Bruised and cut, he struggled to his feet and climbed to Corral Canyon Road, where he flagged down a motorist who drove him to a pay phone at 5:30 p.m.

The victim was treated and released from Westlake Regional Medical Center, where he works.

The victim said he does not know why he was targeted, and worries that the robbers will return. “I’m so afraid now,” he said in a brief telephone interview Friday.

Benedict said Tasers, available to law enforcement personnel, are an uncommon weapon but “you can buy them illegally, like you can anything.”

Benedict said people should demand identification from anyone who claims to be a police officer.

Authorities have no suspects and said the method of robbery is new to them. “This is the first one I know of, and hopefully it’s the last,” Garagliano said.