“Wanted” posters bearing the names and photos of murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and other high-profile heath insurance executives began popping up around Manhattan sometime this week.

Videos shared on social media showed “wanted” signs plastered on scaffolding and green boxes featuring a big red X over Thompson’s face appeared on the corner of Canal Street and Centre Street in Lower Manhattan.

Other posters also donned the faces of other top CEOS and were seen on green scaffolding on Wall Street, according to video.

The posters warn that “HEALTH CARE CEOS SHOULD NOT FEEL SAFE” and include “DENY… DEFEND… DEPOSE” — the three words found on the bullets allegedly shot by Luigi Mangione, who is accused of gunning down Thompson outside a Midtown hotel last week.

The “hit lists” are considered a fear-mongering social media stunt to incite hysteria, sources told The Post, adding that there’s no actual person with a hit list.

Remains of the posters on Canal Street were torn down by noon Wednesday.

Mangione’s manifesto, recovered when he was arrested in Pennsylvania Monday, revealed that he targeted the CEO over his disillusionment with US healthcare and health insurance companies. 

What we know about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

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• Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outside a luxury Midtown hotel in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police said.
• Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the company in 2004. He was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice.
• Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had been getting threats before he was killed.
• Thompson’s shooting led to sick support online, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competition in NYC.
• A person of interest has been nabbed by police officers inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
• The suspect has been identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, originally from Towson, Md. He’s an Ivy League graduate who hated the medical community.

Follow along with The Post’s live updates on the news surrounding Brian Thompson’s murder.

Social media reactions to the brazen assassination have been shockingly sympathetic — leading law enforcement to fear that extremists may consider Mangione a “martyr’’ and pick up his cause, sources told The Post.

Authorities believe corporate executives nationwide may face an “elevated threat” as a result, the sources said.

Mangione’s supporters have already raised tens of thousands of dollars toward his defense funds in the shocking Manhattan slaying that left a father of two dead.

The murder has also spawned a stream of merchandise sympathetic towards the 26-year-old being sold by online retailers, forcing Amazon to pull them from its website.

Gifts like T-shirts, sweatshirts and other goods with “Deny Defend Depose” have been popping up on websites like Amazon, TikTok and Ebay. Other Mangione-themed items with “Free Luigi” written on them have been put up for sale for the killer’s admirers.