Associated Press

  TOLUCA, Mexico - Two Mexican brothers wanted in connection with the 1997 killings of five immigrants in North Carolina have been arrested in central Mexico, state prosecutors announced.

  Alonso Cruz Osorio and Jose Luis Cruz Osorio were arrested earlier this week outside a tire repair shop where they worked in the town of Acolman, a short distance northeast of Mexico City, Mexico State Attorney General Alfonso Navarrete told a press conference on Wednesday.

  The two men are wanted by U.S. authorities in connection with the attack on five Mexicans and a Guatemalan that left five dead on Oct. 5, 1997, authorities said.

  Mexican officials said the killings took place in Monroe, N.C., but earlier reports from the United States placed the incident farther east in Richmond County. Mexican authorities could not immediately clarify the discrepancy.

  A dispute that ended in the killings broke out after Jose Luis Cruz Osorio was named labor foreman at a ranch, the attorney general said. The victims were killed with an assault rifle and a small-caliber pistol.

  A survivor of the attack helped police track the assailants back to Mexico. The FBI participated in the search for the two men, Navarrete said.

  Although the Cruz Osorio brothers have also been linked to killings in Mexico, they are being held for extradition to the United States, Navarrete said.