At its height during the early 1980s, the Medellín Cartel was recognized as being the largest drug-trafficking syndicate in the world, estimated to have been smuggling three times as much cocaine as their main competitor, the Cali Cartel, an international drug-trafficking organization based in the Valle del Cauca department of Colombia; however, some experts and U.S. government officials have claimed the opposite, or said that most data compiled during this period was potentially skewed since most of the national security-based focus was mostly centered on the Medellín organization specifically due to its more ostentatious acts of violence and vindictive nature