I just want to point out some few things:
It's highly unlikely if not impossible that Ran and Shinichi met Akai and Sera in NY, Sera said that they moved to America only 3 years ago, Ran had a flashback of a very young Sera, that means they met around 10 years ago, so they had to have met in Japan, I also doubt Akai was with her, since he didn't recognize Ran and neither Ran nor Shinichi recognized him when they each saw him for the first time, I would assume the middle brother(Shuukichi) and the mother(unknown child) were with Sera instead, also, Akai's age is still unknown, 27 is the age he was using as Okiya. As for the Wizard, it's probably because of a case that young Shinichi solved or something like that, a case which was like magic.