We had same complaint here in the forum - someone received 1 jacket (I would bet on Windows platform) before the game was upgraded to the event and then the game counted only 99 jackets received with 100 in the inventory.I don't think 100 limit affect cheaters in any way, There should never be 100 limit in a game like this where you need 500 item's to 3 star a destination.
Even Alliance tasks require a player to fly 100s of flights to a destination but game doesn't allow more than 100 item's, It just doesn't match.
This 100 limit and Alliance tasks are the 2 of the things I really dislike in the game, There was a case on facebook in which a player was unable to complete the last event as he had 100 of musical instruments in his warehouse already and he couldn't use musical instruments anywhere to make space for new ones so he was unable to finish the event