Detective Conan Black Organization Explained: Every Key Member, Codename, and Secret Spy (2026)

The Black Organization is the crime syndicate at the center of Detective Conan (Case Closed), and it is the reason high-schooler Shinichi Kudo spends the series stuck in a child's body as Conan Edogawa. If you have started the anime or the movies and lost track of who Gin, Vermouth, Bourbon, Rum, and "that person" actually are, this guide sorts them out.

Below you will find what the organization is, how its alcohol-themed codenames work, who sits at the top, and which members are secretly police or intelligence agents. Where the manga has only hinted at something, we say so instead of guessing. Facts here are drawn from the Detective Conan World wiki and Wikipedia's Case Closed character list, both linked at the end.

• What it is: the secret criminal syndicate at the heart of Detective Conan, and its main antagonist.
• Codenames: alcoholic drinks — hard liquor for the men, wine or wine-based cocktails for the women.
• The boss: Renya Karasuma, known to underlings only as "that person" (ano kata).
• Number two: Rum, revealed to be disguised as sushi chef Kanenori Wakita.
• Why it matters: Gin forced the drug APTX 4869 on Shinichi Kudo, which shrank him into Conan.

What is the Black Organization in Detective Conan?

The Black Organization is a secret criminal syndicate with a hidden objective. It funds itself through illegal deals, blackmail, robberies, and contract assassinations, and it removes anyone who threatens to expose it. Its ultimate goal has never been officially confirmed in the manga, though the story points toward research into life extension.

The turning point of the whole series comes from this group. Its executioner, Gin, forced an experimental poison called APTX 4869 (Apotoxin 4869) on high-school detective Shinichi Kudo. Instead of killing him, the drug shrank him into a small child, and he took the name Conan Edogawa to hide and hunt the syndicate down. That single event is why the series exists, and why the Black Organization is the thread every major arc keeps returning to.

One detail collectors and new viewers both trip over: Akibato does not carry a dedicated Detective Conan line, because this is one franchise the store simply has not stocked. If the mystery pulls you into figure collecting anyway, you can still browse the full catalog of anime figures and Ichiban Kuji that Akibato ships from Japan and land on something you actually want.

How the Black Organization codenames work

Every high-ranking member is given a codename based on an alcoholic drink. The pattern is consistent: hard liquors go to the men (Gin, Vodka, Tequila), while the women take wine or wine-based cocktails (Vermouth, Chianti, Kir). Creator Gosho Aoyama has also indicated that members sharing this codename style sit at a comparable rank.

The one person who does not follow the rule is the boss. Lower-ranked members do not use a drink name for the leader at all; they refer to the boss only as "that person." That gap is deliberate, and it is a large part of what keeps the leader's identity a mystery for so long.

The executives: Gin, Vodka, and Vermouth

These three are the members you meet earliest and see most often, and they are the public face of the syndicate's day-to-day operations.

Gin — the executioner

Gin is a chief administrator and the organization's most feared killer. He drives a black Porsche 356A and coordinates missions and assassinations. He is the member who handed Shinichi the APTX 4869 pill, so he is effectively the reason Conan exists. He treats failure inside the organization as a death sentence, including toward his own colleagues.

Vodka — Gin's partner

Vodka works as Gin's partner and as a managerial secretary, handling information and logistics. He is muscle and support rather than a strategist, and he defers to Gin on almost everything.

Vermouth — the master of disguise

Vermouth is the most fascinating executive. Her public identity was the American actress Sharon Vineyard, who won an Oscar, and she later staged Sharon's death to continue living as Sharon's "daughter," Chris Vineyard. She can mimic almost anyone's appearance and voice after only brief observation, a skill compared to Kaito Kid's.

Crucially, Vermouth has worked out that Conan is Shinichi and that Ai Haibara is Sherry, yet she has kept both secrets from the rest of the organization. Her reasons are never fully spelled out, but they trace back to Shinichi saving her life in New York. She is also described as the boss's favorite, which buys her unusual independence.

Rum and the boss: the top of the pyramid

Above the executives sit two figures the series held back for decades.

Rum — the second-in-command

Rum is the number-two of the entire organization and is described as very close to the boss. For a long stretch of the manga, Rum's identity was a three-way mystery, with the story deliberately floating multiple suspects. It has since been revealed that Rum is disguised as Kanenori Wakita, a sushi chef, and a distinctive trait is an artificial left eye.

The boss — Renya Karasuma

The leader is named Renya Karasuma. He is reportedly extremely old and was long thought to be dead, yet the story treats him as still alive and still in command. To subordinates he is only "that person." His full identity, his motives, and what the organization is truly building toward remain the central unanswered questions of the series, so this is the one area where "we do not know yet" is the honest answer.

The spies inside: Rye, Bourbon, and Kir

What makes the Black Organization arcs so tense is that several "members" are actually undercover agents. Each infiltrator takes a drink codename to blend in while feeding intelligence to the police or foreign agencies.

Rye — Shuichi Akai (FBI)

Shuichi Akai is an FBI agent who infiltrated the organization under the codename Rye. He is regarded as the syndicate's single greatest threat, and his cat-and-mouse history with Gin drives some of the series' biggest confrontations.

Bourbon — Rei Furuya / Tooru Amuro (NPA Public Security)

Bourbon is a Japanese National Police Agency Security Bureau investigator whose real name is Rei Furuya, nicknamed "Zero." His public cover is Tooru Amuro, who works as a waiter at Cafe Poirot and as an apprentice detective under Kogoro Mouri. He infiltrates the organization for the police, considers Akai his rival, and frequently ends up working alongside Vermouth.

Kir — Hidemi Hondou / Rena Mizunashi (CIA)

Kir presents herself inside the organization as a member, and publicly as Nichiuri TV announcer Rena Mizunashi. Her real name is Hidemi Hondou, and she is a CIA agent who ends up cooperating with the FBI while maintaining her cover. Like Rye and Bourbon, she is loyal to the outside, not to the syndicate.

Sherry — the defector

Sherry is the codename of Shiho Miyano, the scientist who developed APTX 4869. After the organization killed her sister, she took the drug herself in a suicide attempt, shrank like Shinichi did, and escaped to live as the child Ai Haibara. She is not an outside agent but a defector the organization wants dead.

Black Organization members at a glance

Here is a compact reference to the codenames covered above, their real identities where known, and where their true loyalty lies. "Active" means still serving the syndicate as of the current manga.

Why the Black Organization still matters in 2026

Thirty years into the manga, the Black Organization is still the engine of the series. The Rum arc resolving his identity, the reveal of the boss's name, and the ongoing tug-of-war between the FBI, the CIA, and Japan's Public Security have kept the syndicate at the front of every recent theatrical hit, including the 2020s films that keep breaking Japanese box-office records.

For newcomers, the practical takeaway is that you do not need to have watched all 1,100-plus episodes to follow the syndicate. The organization surfaces in specific arcs and in most of the movies, so a targeted approach works far better than trying to watch everything in order. If you want that route, our Detective Conan watch order guide shows where to jump in, and our Detective Conan movies in order breakdown flags which films lean heaviest on Gin, Akai, and Amuro.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the boss of the Black Organization?

The boss is named Renya Karasuma. He is referred to by subordinates only as "that person" (ano kata), and while his name is known, his full identity and motives remain the series' central mystery.

Why are the Black Organization members named after alcohol?

Every ranking member is given a codename based on an alcoholic drink: hard liquors for the men (Gin, Vodka) and wine or wine-based cocktails for the women (Vermouth, Kir). The boss is the exception and has no drink codename.

Who is Bourbon in Detective Conan?

Bourbon is Rei Furuya, a National Police Agency Public Security investigator who goes by the public name Tooru Amuro. He infiltrates the Black Organization for the police while working as a Cafe Poirot waiter and an apprentice detective.

Is Amuro a bad guy?

No. Tooru Amuro (Bourbon) appears to serve the Black Organization, but he is actually an undercover Public Security agent working to bring the syndicate down. His loyalty is to the police, not the organization.

Who gave Conan the poison?

Gin administered the experimental drug APTX 4869 to Shinichi Kudo. Rather than killing him, it shrank him into a child, and he adopted the identity Conan Edogawa to survive and investigate the organization.

The short version

• The Black Organization is Detective Conan's central crime syndicate; Gin's poison, APTX 4869, is what turned Shinichi into Conan.
• Ranking members use drink codenames — liquor for men, wine and cocktails for women — while the boss, Renya Karasuma, is called only "that person."
• Rum, the second-in-command, was revealed to be disguised as Kanenori Wakita.
• Vermouth (Sharon/Chris Vineyard) knows Conan's secret but keeps it hidden.
• Rye (Akai/FBI), Bourbon (Amuro/NPA), and Kir (Hidemi Hondou/CIA) are undercover agents, and Sherry (Ai Haibara) is a defector.

New to the collecting side of the fandom? Akibato has no Conan figures, but if this cast got you curious about scale and prize figures in general, our guide to the types of anime figures explains what to look for, and you can browse everything currently shipping from Japan at Akibato.