AWAITING RECRUITS: There are currently only eight fugitives on the Most Wanted Top 10 list, after one member was recently captured and another killed.

Rafael Caro-Quintero

Crime: One of the founders of the Guadalajara drug cartel, the Mexican national is charged with kidnapping and murdering a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985.

Reward: One of the program's largest ever rewards -- $20 mllion -- is offered for information directly leading to the 66-year-old's arrest.

Most wanted since: 2018 One of the founders of the Guadalajara drug cartel, the Mexican national is charged with kidnapping and murdering a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985.One of the program's largest ever rewards -- $20 mllion -- is offered for information directly leading to the 66-year-old's arrest.2018 ASSOCIATED PRESS Robert William Fisher

Crime: The Brooklyn-born former firefighter, 57, is wanted for allegedly murdering his wife and two children, then blowing up their Scottsdale, Ariz., home in 2001.

Reward: $100,000

Most wanted since: 2002 The Brooklyn-born former firefighter, 57, is wanted for allegedly murdering his wife and two children, then blowing up their Scottsdale, Ariz., home in 2001.$100,0002002 AP 3 Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel

Crime: Wanted for the alleged murder of his new wife in 2015, while both were working at a Hanover, Md., donut shop. The Indian immigrant, now 28, was last known to be in the Newark, NJ, area.

Reward: $100,000Most wanted since: 2017 4 Alejandro Rosales Castillo

Crime: Castillo, 20, is suspected of involvement in the shooting death of his girlfriend in Charlotte, NC, in 2015. He was seen crossing the border into Mexico and believed to be living there now.

Reward: $100,000

Most wanted since: 2017 5 Alexis Flores

Crime: The Honduran national -- whose exact age is not known -- is wanted for the 2005 kidnapping and murder by strangulation of a 5-year-old girl in Philadelphia. DNA evidence linked him to the crime.

Reward: $00,000

Most wanted since: 2007 6 Jason Derek Brown

Crime: In 2004, Brown allegedly shot and killed an armored-car guard in Phoenix, Ariz., then fled with the money from the car. The 49-year-old, who has a master's degree in international business, lived in France at one point.

Reward: $200,000

Most wanted since: 2007 7 Yaser Abdel Said

Crime: Said, 62, is charged with the shooting deaths of his two teenage daughters in Irvington, Texas, in 2007. Said allegedly believed the girls had dishonored the family's traditional Egyptian culture.

Reward: $100,000

Most wanted since: 2014 8 Santiago Villalba Mederos

Crime: A purported member of the Washington state gang Eastside Lokotes Sureños, Mederos is wanted for two 2010 murders in the state. He is now 27 years old.

Reward: $100,000

Most wanted since: 2017 Ad Up Next Close Next chapter in Rafael Nadal-Roger Federer rivalry will have to wait INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from the... 8 View Slideshow Back Continue Share this: Facebook

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It’s the Top 10 that nobody campaigns to make.

Still, the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list provides a kind of notoriety for the worst of the worst criminals on the lam — who over the decades have ranged from Gianni Versace murderer Andrew Cunanan to serial killer Ted Bundy.

This past week, the list celebrated its 69th anniversary. And bad news for crooks: There are two open spots.

The gaps come after the February shootout death of Greg Alyn Carlson, who had been on the list since September 2018, for multiple armed sexual assaults. Also, murder suspect Lamont Stephenson — he hit the list last October, wanted for killing his ­fiancée and her dog — was apprehended in Maryland last week. (As for the open spots, FBI spokesperson Michelle Goldschen said, “The selection process is underway. We do not have any time frame.”)

The list was hatched by notorious FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1950, but it wasn’t originally his idea.

“One year earlier, [the FBI had been] approached by James F. Donovan, a reporter with United Press International. He wanted to do a story on the 10 toughest ­fugitives,” FBI historian John F. Fox told The Post. “The article was so popular that [the bureau] figured this would be a good way of reaching the public.”

Then it was just a matter of: How do we make sure people see the list? At the time, there was one sure answer: the post office. “The postal department said the FBI could put up its fliers as long as they fit in the loose-leaf style hoops that were already on the wall for the hanging of other notices,” said retired FBI agent Joe Navarro, who wrote “The Dictionary of Body Language.”

First to grace the Most Wanted was Thomas “Tough Tommy” Holden (the list of 10 is not particularly ordered). He had previously served time in the 1920s for robbery with firearms. He escaped Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, was re-apprehended and then released in 1947. But he made the list when he “killed his wife and her two brothers during a drunken altercation,” said Fox. “Thirteen months [later], he got captured in Beaverton, Ore., based on a tip from a citizen. Holden was one of nine [criminals] captured during the first couple years, proving that the list worked.”

Still, some argue that it was created to serve a secondary purpose.

“The FBI used the list to distract the public from other things they were doing,” said Matthew Cecil, author of “Branding Hoover’s FBI” and a dean at Minnesota State University, Mankato. “Hoover came in to do domestic spying. He took advantage of the public’s fascination with [criminals] so they would not think about him spying on Americans who didn’t do anything but dissent. He was suspicious of everyone to the left of him.”

SO how does one murderer make the list when so many others don’t?

“One of the primary criteria is that we believe the person is an ongoing menace to society,” said Christopher Allen, chief of the FBI’s Investigative Publicity Unit. “They have to have a propensity for violence today.”

Special agents in the Criminal Investigation Division and specialists in the Office of Public Affairs select candidates for the list. Final decisions are approved by FBI executive management, which may include the director of the bureau.

“Our Criminal Investigative Division will canvas all of the [bureau’s] 56 field offices and ask for nominations,” said Allen. “There’s no doubt that some agents [particularly] like to get their cases up there.”

For one thing, “Reward money [increases] and so do resources,” said Marc Ruskin, an FBI undercover veteran and author of “The Pretender.” “If you want 24-hour surveillance, you are likelier to get it. Same with expensive equipment. The case is a priority.”

And the agent who brings in a Most Wanted criminal earns a special reputation.

Scott Garriola, operator of the FBI fugitive task force in Los Angeles, holds the record for capturing the most fugitives from the list: 6.

Navarro was in on the 1989 Florida capture of Top Ten fugitive Bobby Gene Dennie, wanted for rape, murder and robbery. “It feels special,” said Navarro of being part of such a high-profile case. “There is a lot of pressure, a lot of attention . . . Headquarters is on the phone with an open line. Everything is being monitored. What normally entails knocking on a door and making an arrest becomes a monstrosity when it is a Top Ten fugitive. You don’t want to wind up testifying before Congress, explaining why you didn’t prepare.”

Notable fugitives who went on to Most Wanted infamy include 1960s revolutionary Angela Davis, who was charged with buying weapons used in a California shootout. One of only 10 women to ever make the list, she was arrested less than two months later and, ultimately, found innocent. Repeat offender James Earl Ray is one of five people to be put on the list twice: First for assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and then for escaping from Tennessee’s Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary nine years later.

Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger had been on the list for 12 years until CNN aired a 2011 report about the hunt to find him. That caught the eye of Anna Bjornsdottir, a former Miss Iceland who had lived in Los Angeles. She recognized her neighbor and placed a call to the FBI. Bulger was apprehended soon after — with Garriola taking part in the arrest — and the beauty queen received $2 million in reward money for ratting him out. (Bulger died last year in prison, beaten to death by fellow inmates.)

While Bjornsdottir’s seven-figure bounty ranks as the largest reward money put up by the FBI (the minimum for turning in a Top Ten fugitive is $100,000), other entities such as the State Department have been known to sweeten Most Wanted reward deals — like the $25 million offered for Osama Bin Laden. Currently, $20 million is up for grabs for tips leading to the capture of Mexican cartel kingpin Rafael Caro-Quintero, who killed a DEA agent with a drill boring into his head.

“One fact [in determining a reward] is the physical risk to an informant who comes forward,” said Ruskin. “Drug kingpins will not hesitate to kill your family. That’s not worth $1 million. But for $20 million, maybe you can buy your own island.”

Besides capture or death, there are two ways to escape the list: One, the government decides you are no longer federally wanted for your perceived crime. Two, you cease being considered dangerous or likely to be arrested through your presence on the list. Fifteen people have benefited from the former, and 10 from the latter.

Among the lucky 25: Alleged Russian mob boss Semion Mogilevich, accused of swindling stock-market investors out of $150 million, was dropped in 2015 after being deemed a non-threat.

Nonetheless, there’s no arguing with the success of the list: since 1950, 521 fugitives have been listed and 488 apprehended or located, with 162 of those caught due to public cooperation.

Over the years, the Most Wanted lineup has evolved with the complexion of crime.

“The first 10 [people on there] were violent criminals,” said Fox, adding that it stayed that way through the ’60s with a smattering of student revolutionaries.

“In the ’70s there were more domestic terrorists, like the Weather Underground. The 1980s brought drug gangs, and the ’90s, international terrorists” — including Osama Bin Laden for the 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Kenya and Tanzania — “and child pornographers. Now it’s murder committed publicly in a particularly violent way.”

Some believe the heat of being named Most Wanted can be enough to lead to a fugitive’s capture.

“I would assume [it] makes you paranoid and prone to mistakes,” said Cecil. “The cultural identity is that FBI agents are everywhere — and they always get their man.”