Higgins was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York. Learning pickpocketing and petty theft as a child, by 1916, he had been arrested for assault twice but was put on probation. At the beginning of Prohibition he had formed a small-time gang which started to operate outside of Bay Ridge after taking control of "Big Bill" Bill Dwyer's bootlegging operations with partner Frank Costello in 1927, importing high quality Canadian liquor for Dwyer's high-society clientele.