Born in New York, Abe Bernstein and his brothers moved to Detroit in their youth. During their teenage years, they joined a juvenile street gang that was the precursor to the adult Purple Gang. By the beginning of Prohibition, Bernstein and his brothers had emerged as leading members of the gang. As the Purple Gang members grew older, they quickly gained a reputation along the Detroit waterfront as ruthless and violent hijackers. However, they normally attracted little attention from police as their victims were usually either rumrunners or rival gangs such as the Little Jewish Navy.