Spoilers: this explanation covers the hijacking, the deaths of the robbers and the organizer’s identity.
The Moving Police Box, international episode 1196 (Japanese episode 1138), is an anime-original case. Local idol Kanon Aoshima is the organizer using the name Rindo. She helps two watch thieves seize the mobile police vehicle, poses as a fellow hostage and then eliminates her accomplices so she can keep the stolen luxury watches. Her access to the door lock inside the vehicle is essential to exposing her involvement.
A public-safety event becomes a hostage crisis
Beika introduces a mobile police box, a vehicle that can take ordinary neighborhood police services to different locations. Aoshima hosts the launch event in a police uniform, and Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta proudly help explain the vehicle to the audience.
Kogoro is distracted by the idol, but Conan takes him away to pick up Ran. Haibara stays with the other children. That separation becomes important when the mobile police box sets off for its next destination with the group and Aoshima aboard.
After an abrupt stop, two men seize the vehicle, take the officer’s handgun and use Aoshima as a hostage. An alarm and police radio information connect them to a nearby luxury-watch robbery. The uniformed driver, the idol and the four children are now traveling under the robbers’ control.
Haibara sends an SOS while Conan follows the trail
Haibara finds an opportunity to tap out an SOS in Morse code through her Detective Boys badge without alerting the captors. Conan recognizes it and begins tracking the signal with his glasses, using his skateboard to pursue the vehicle.
The robbers take the children’s phones and badges and throw them away. Conan recovers the discarded devices but notices that one is missing, giving him reason to keep following rather than treat the abandoned belongings as the end of the trail.
The children consider resisting, but the armed men order them to remain quiet. During a stop, Haibara drops a security marking ball. Its colored trace gives Conan another physical sign to follow, and the pursuit also brings the police onto the stolen vehicle’s route.
Aoshima appears to protect the children and suffers a minor injury. For those trapped with her, that behavior reinforces her position as another victim. The eventual revelation is disturbing precisely because the children have had reason to trust her during the crisis.
The hostages are found, but the vehicle has changed its appearance
Conan finds Haibara, the other children and Aoshima in a multistory parking garage, blindfolded and bound at their wrists and ankles. He frees them, but the thieves and the mobile police box are gone.
The robbers have wrapped the vehicle to disguise its appearance. What the police are searching for as a mobile police box can now pass as a different sort of vehicle. Its transformation into a food truck is eventually exposed at an abandoned warehouse near the harbor.
Rescuing the group therefore resolves only the immediate danger to the hostages. Conan still has to locate the stolen watches and determine how the hijackers’ escape plan fits together.
The watch group leads to Ishida and the name Rindo
Takagi and Kogoro identify entrepreneur Ishida as one of the people involved. Information on the computer in his office brings up Rindo, and notes lead the investigators to a manga cafe called Honmake.
The cafe owner belongs to an online group interested in wristwatches. He provides information but says he did not join the plan. That distinction matters: membership in the watch community supplies a connection to the suspects, not proof that everyone in it took part in the robbery.
The investigation then receives news of a burned vehicle containing two dead men, identified as Ishida and Kuroki. The stolen watches are not there. Neither body accounts for the organizer known as Rindo, so the case cannot end with the deaths of the two men who seized the police vehicle.
Aoshima’s position inside the vehicle exposes the plan
Aoshima returns to the disguised mobile police box and opens its door. Kogoro and Takagi arrive, and the explanation through Sleeping Kogoro identifies her as Rindo. Conan’s continuing surveillance has brought the investigation beyond the apparent rescue of an innocent idol.
The hijacking depended on the door being unlocked from inside. Aoshima was the person aboard who enabled the thieves to enter, so her presence was part of the operation from the beginning. Her role as a hostage concealed that cooperation.
Ishida and Kuroki carried out the watch robbery, but Aoshima planned to retain the proceeds alone. She killed the accomplices and used the burning vehicle to silence them, while the valuable watches remained separate from their bodies. The missing organizer and missing loot point to the unfinished part of the scheme.
The identity reversal gives the title an uncomfortable edge. A vehicle introduced as a reassuring public service becomes both a getaway vehicle and a place where the children are held captive. The friendly event host is the person who arranged the danger.
The children return to the launch with their usual enthusiasm
After the case, the Detective Boys are back at the event, enthusiastically swinging the forked restraint tools known as sasumata as though they were toys. Haibara rebukes them, and Conan’s reaction supplies the final comic note.
That familiar energy gives the episode some relief after the hostage scenes and the deaths of the accomplices. Haibara’s careful SOS and improvised trail remain central to the rescue, while Conan’s pursuit and later surveillance are needed to expose the crime beyond the hijacking.
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