After Clinton proposed anti-money-laundering law, group gave $448,000 to top leaders in Congress

WASHINGTON - The owner of one of the biggest banks in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda - known for years as a money-laundering haven - was the largest contributor to then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's "soft money" fund-raising committee in the 12 months that ended June 30.

Houston-based banker R. Allen Stanford, who has dual citizenship in the United States and Antigua, paid for a 1998 effort by Antigua to overhaul its banking laws. But the U.S. government complained that the new secrecy rules allowed the country to continue to hide money for tax purposes and said Stanford's financing of the changes and presence on a new regulatory authority was a conflict of interest.

In April 1999, the Treasury Department issued an advisory telling banks to give enhanced scrutiny to all financial transactions coming out of Antigua. That advisory was withdrawn in August 2001 after Antigua enacted significant reforms.

In September 1999, the Clinton administration proposed anti-money-laundering legislation.

Soon thereafter - between February 2000 and June 2001 - Stanford and his Houston company, Stanford Financial Group, gave a total of $448,000 in largely unregulated "soft money" donations to the Republican and Democratic parties and to three influential members of Congress, according to a report on soft money released this week by Public Citizen, a Washin