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Local officials still don't know the names or nationalities of three illegal entrants who were shot and killed in the desert northwest of Tucson last week but they're confident that the shooters were bandits.

Contrary to rumors circulating about the shooting being a hate crime executed by "vigilantes," the evidence gathered so far points to smugglers, said Lt. Michael O'Connor of the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

"We have no information before us that this was anyone other than smugglers," said O'Connor, whose agency is leading the homicide investigation.

But agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is leading the smuggling investigation, haven't ruled out any possibilities, including that it was the act of vigilantes, said Lauren Mack, agency spokeswoman.

"We still haven't determined either way with respect to what the motive was," Mack said.

The events unfolded northwest of Tucson in the early morning of Feb. 8, when three or four men opened fire on a stolen Dodge pickup carrying 15 to 20 illegal entrants, killing three and wounding two others. Two other non-injured illegal entrants were apprehended.

Why would rival smugglers open fire on a truckload of illegal entrants if they if they wanted to capture and smuggle the entrants themselves, questioned Sebastian Quinac, immigration and border program coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee in Tucson. With the anti-immigrant sentiment that exists, it's possible the shooters were vigilantes, he said.

"I'm not convinced that the shooting happened among immigrants or smugglers," he said.

On Monday, sheriff's deputies on horseback and in all-terrain vehicles returned to the Silver Bell mine area northwest of Tucson and searched for tire tracks, footprints and shell casings in an attempt to collect more evidence. Deputies haven't made any arrests.

Investigators still have no idea about who the shooters were, or where they might be now, O'Connor said. That stems from a lack of information from the surviving witnesses, who have only said that the men emerged from the darkness and yelled, "Alto," "stop" in Spanish. When the truck kept driving, they opened fire with high-powered rifles, he said.

"They never even got a good look at the bad guys," O'Connor said.

On Feb. 9, ICE agents arrested Pedro Luis Beltran Camargo, 21, of Sinaloa, Mexico, who faces charges of illegal smuggling. He drove down from Phoenix where he was living illegally to pick up the group, Mack said. Agents believe he had a smuggling partner whom they are still trying to locate, Mack said.

The results of autopsies showed that each of the three victims died from a single gunshot wound, O'Connor said. Some of them were carrying identification but investigators aren't sure if it was real so they are processing fingerprints through a national database to determine their identities, he said. Illegal entrants often carry false identification in case they are apprehended.

Footprints showed that the rest of the illegal entrants in the truck went a different direction than the wounded individuals who were found. It is believed they likely caught a ride north, O'Connor said. Despite initial reports, he said there is no evidence that they were kidnapped.